WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.200 It is the 15th of May 2026. 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:04.320 I am Corey J. 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:06.880 Mahler, and this is at any cost. 00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:12.080 This is episode 28, a QA episode, and I do not believe 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:17.200 that I have any housekeeping, so I will simply get into the 00:00:17.200 --> 00:00:22.640 questions here. 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:26.400 As soon as I Open up my list here. 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:27.840 Question one. 00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:31.440 What is your opinion on the arrest of Chud the Builder? 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:34.560 I pulled this one out because it is relevant. 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:37.280 It's sort of an ongoing thing right now. 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:40.960 I would start off by saying I don't always answer questions like 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:44.720 this because a lot of times these things are sort of in 00:00:44.720 --> 00:00:48.560 flux and I may not know a particularly great amount about them. 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:53.200 For instance, I was unaware of this man before Recent events and 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:55.440 people tagging me and asking me questions. 00:00:55.440 --> 00:00:58.480 Partly because he's in Tennessee and I'm in Tennessee and I'm an 00:00:58.480 --> 00:01:01.600 attorney, and he obviously needs an attorney, an attorney. 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:06.080 But as I've already said, on X, I do not have a 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:07.520 Tennessee bar card. 00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:12.000 And yes, there is Pro Hoc Vice, which basically just means specifically 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:13.680 for this given matter. 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:18.080 So a court can admit an attorney to practice before the court, 00:01:18.080 --> 00:01:22.320 even though the attorney does not have the bar card necessary, whatever 00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:25.520 it happens to be, to practice in that court. 00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:29.760 That's usually exceptional and there's usually has to be a compelling reason 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:30.640 for it. 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:35.520 There's no compelling reason to the mind of a court to admit 00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:40.960 a California attorney in a Tennessee court for a criminal matter. 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:45.520 Because there are many attorneys who practice criminal law. 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:49.840 And so no court is going to admit me pro-Hoc Vice, particularly 00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:52.720 because I have not practiced criminal law. 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:57.600 And so all of the things they would use, all the warrants 00:01:57.600 --> 00:02:02.000 that would be in favor of that admission are against me. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.840 So I c someone asked on X and also in the chat, 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:07.360 can I offer legal advice? 00:02:07.360 --> 00:02:09.120 I can offer legal advice. 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:13.600 It's not officially legal advice because I'm not a Tennessee attorney, so 00:02:13.600 --> 00:02:16.640 it would just be generalized advice. 00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:18.480 So, you know, attorneys can consult. 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:22.240 That's something that you can do as an attorney without without necessarily 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:26.720 being admitted in the state in which the action is taking place. 00:02:26.720 --> 00:02:31.520 But to get to the question proper, I've pointed out it's not 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:34.560 the sort of behavior in which I engage and I was already 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:37.680 fairly clear about that on X what I meant by saying that. 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.120 As you may have noticed, I don't use expletives. 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:44.240 I don't engage in that sort of shocking behavior. 00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:46.800 I don't do that sort of stuff. 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:50.640 I don't necessarily condemn it in all situations. 00:02:50.640 --> 00:02:51.120 I don't. 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:54.160 I'll be explicit, I do not condemn it in all situations. 00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:59.200 And I have to give the caveat of all situations because if 00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:03.600 you're doing it in church That's inappropriate, right? 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:06.560 The behavior in which he is engaging, if you ran into a 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:09.920 black church and did that, I would object to that. 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:12.160 Because that's a totally different thing. 00:03:12.160 --> 00:03:13.200 That's inappropriate. 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:14.640 Don't do that. 00:03:14.640 --> 00:03:18.000 Even though, yes, there are plenty of problems with black churches, many 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.240 of them teach horrible theology. 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:24.320 Still, time and place, matter of wisdom, don't do that. 00:03:24.320 --> 00:03:28.000 Now is one Is what he's doing necessarily wise? 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:30.960 No, from what I've seen it may not be wise. 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.520 But that doesn't mean that it's not something that needs to be 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:34.400 done, right? 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:39.360 There's a certain change in mindset and sort of the contours of 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:45.680 how freedom of speech and related matters are enforced or not enforced 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:46.800 in the US context. 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:49.840 And he's pushing the envelope in what appears to be a useful 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:54.080 way. Preliminary comment, like I said, I know not that much about 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:56.720 him. I just did a little bit of research before I hit 00:03:56.880 --> 00:03:58.320 start streaming. 00:03:58.320 --> 00:03:58.800 And so 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:06.320 I don't believe that he should have been arrested necessarily because from 00:04:06.320 --> 00:04:12.000 what I can see of the information that is already public from 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:17.520 what I can actually access, it looks like it was indeed self-defense. 00:04:17.520 --> 00:04:19.920 Did he engage in provocative behavior? 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:23.040 Yes. But are you allowed to do that legally? 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.200 The answer is yes you are. 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:28.720 There are certain lines you cannot cross, right? 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:30.160 You can't stalk someone. 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:30.960 That's a crime. 00:04:30.960 --> 00:04:32.880 You're not allowed to stalk people people. 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:36.880 You can't, you know, follow people for blocks is an inappropriate thing. 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:38.560 Don't go out and do that. 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:43.440 But generally speaking, you do have a right to free speech, including 00:04:43.440 --> 00:04:47.440 in public, as long as you don't cross certain boundaries, basically as 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:50.160 long as you're not making threats, right? 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:52.640 And the threats have to be of a certain kind because there's 00:04:52.640 --> 00:04:54.800 there's a whole area of the law concerned with that, and I 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:57.360 don't want to get into that right now, but there are there 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:59.680 are elements you have to hit in order to actually have it 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:03.440 be a credible threat that is actionable and not free speech, right? 00:05:03.440 --> 00:05:03.760 So 00:05:04.640 --> 00:05:07.120 there are lines there, there's some gray area. 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:08.560 Just be careful with that stuff. 00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:10.400 You can look up the test online. 00:05:10.400 --> 00:05:14.240 It's fairly simple, fairly easy to understand, as a test like that 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:15.360 should be. 00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:19.920 So it doesn't seem to me like his behavior crossed those lines. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:23.520 It does seem to me like the other gentleman will call him 00:05:23.760 --> 00:05:28.080 engaged in threatening behavior, and then indeed assaulted him, in the criminal 00:05:28.080 --> 00:05:32.560 sense of the term, incidentally also I believe in the civil sense. 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.760 There's a difference between salt assault and battery in civil courts. 00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:41.040 Assault is putting someone in imminent apprehension of undue or unwanted contact. 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:44.000 So if I pretend I'm going to punch you, that could be 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:45.760 assault in a civil context. 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:48.000 Battery is when I actually hit you. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:50.560 Incidentally, if I hit you in the back, it's battery and not 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:52.800 assault because you didn't see it coming. 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:57.280 In the criminal sense, we usually mean by assault actually physical contact, 00:05:57.280 --> 00:06:01.760 right? We mean actually hitting another person, doing something actually physical, not 00:06:01.760 --> 00:06:02.560 just words. 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:07.600 And so it looks like the other gentleman engaged in that behavior, 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:09.680 and so it would be warranted self-defense. 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:12.080 That is my initial assessment of it. 00:06:12.080 --> 00:06:13.680 I think that's reasonable. 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:18.480 And so does he pose the sort of imminent threat or ongoing 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:22.800 threat where he should be incarcerated in order to prevent him from 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:26.640 causing additional harm while this matter is being adjudicated? 00:06:26.640 --> 00:06:27.520 I don't think so. 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:30.640 It's being done because it's a white man and the other man 00:06:30.640 --> 00:06:31.360 was black. 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:32.720 That's the whole reason. 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:33.360 And 00:06:34.960 --> 00:06:40.160 as a practical matter that's related to this, in cases where you 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:42.640 have given current conditions, right? 00:06:42.640 --> 00:06:46.000 In cases where you have one of our guys, who's white, who's 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.840 clearly being persecuted on account of his race, or is at least 00:06:49.840 --> 00:06:53.600 being singled out for different treatment on account of his race, you 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:55.200 support that guy. 00:06:55.200 --> 00:07:01.520 Period. Because it is a strategic matter, not just a you know 00:07:01.760 --> 00:07:03.600 moral objective matter. 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:04.800 It's a different thing. 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.120 And yes, as someone said in the chat, we have it's not 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:10.560 even just a two tier system, it's a multi tier system. 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:15.040 It's sort of it's not really the oppression Olympics as it has 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:19.440 been called sometimes, because there are very much privileged groups and the 00:07:19.440 --> 00:07:22.640 term privilege gets abused a lot, but it has utility as well. 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:24.320 It's a very real thing. 00:07:24.320 --> 00:07:28.640 There are privileged groups with regard to treatment by our legal system, 00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:31.120 and there are groups that are not privileged. 00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:34.640 And if you're a white male, particularly a white male Christian, and 00:07:34.640 --> 00:07:37.200 he does appear to be a Christian, then 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:40.800 you are basically devoid of any privilege. 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:43.440 You are going to get the book thrown at you, to use 00:07:43.440 --> 00:07:44.960 the old saying. 00:07:44.960 --> 00:07:49.040 So you support your guy, you support our guy because he is 00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:50.240 one of us. 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:53.200 And could he have done something? 00:07:53.200 --> 00:07:56.640 Not in this case, but you know, hypothetically, even if he did 00:07:56.640 --> 00:08:01.920 something that was foolish, right, you still support the guy because the 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:06.080 system is persecuting him in a way because of who he is, 00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:07.600 because of what he is. 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:12.480 And so, yes, again, you support our guy. 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:16.640 I'm not going to give a blanket recommendation of that sort of 00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:20.080 behavior, but I'm not going to say that it's necessarily wrongful. 00:08:20.080 --> 00:08:22.720 Like I said in a post on X, I think it is 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:24.160 something that needs to be done. 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:27.200 I think it's something that's important given the reality of where we 00:08:27.200 --> 00:08:27.600 are now. 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:31.520 Again, it's that envelope pushing, it's trying to push things in our 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:33.120 direction. It is 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.480 beneficial in the long run. 00:08:36.640 --> 00:08:38.880 And there are guys who are going to do that, and guys 00:08:38.880 --> 00:08:41.200 like me who are not going to do that. 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:42.720 So no. 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:45.280 The short answer is I do not believe that he should be 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:50.720 arrested, and I don't believe in an objective system that was morally 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.560 structured following the law and not just you know the letter of 00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:57.520 the law but also the intent of the law, the spirit of 00:08:57.520 --> 00:09:00.080 the law, I don't believe he would have been arrested. 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:03.600 He would have been sent home and said, you know, don't leave 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:05.360 the county. 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:09.280 That's just standard procedure for something like this if you're not incarcerated 00:09:09.280 --> 00:09:10.320 pending trial. 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:11.600 Don't leave the county. 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:12.720 Stick around. 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.720 We're going to have an investigation, and then we'll determine what happened 00:09:16.800 --> 00:09:19.200 and whether we charge you or not. 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:20.800 That's how things should go. 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:25.120 Of course, optimally, under ideal conditions, this wouldn't happen, right? 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:27.680 I've pointed that out on X as well. 00:09:27.680 --> 00:09:30.880 Because we shouldn't have Africans in our lands. 00:09:30.880 --> 00:09:34.240 And so this sort of confrontation shouldn't even be possible. 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:40.240 Now, if we had segregation in terms of actual countries, so they 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.680 over in their lands, us in our lands, right? 00:09:43.680 --> 00:09:47.600 If we had that, then no, you shouldn't fly over there and 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:48.640 harass them, right? 00:09:48.640 --> 00:09:49.520 That would be dumb. 00:09:49.520 --> 00:09:50.880 We'd condemn that. 00:09:50.880 --> 00:09:52.320 But they shouldn't be here. 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:54.320 That's the foundational problem. 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:57.680 That's the foundational issue that needs to be resolved. 00:09:57.680 --> 00:10:01.520 Again, don't go and harass people in church or places like that, 00:10:01.520 --> 00:10:03.760 but free speech is something that we have. 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:06.560 I think that it is important within certain bounds. 00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:08.720 I don't think free speech should should be unbounded. 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:10.080 I'm not a libertarian, right? 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.960 I think blasphemy should be illegal and punished. 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:15.680 For instance, that's one one example. 00:10:15.680 --> 00:10:18.880 But we do have free speech with regard to issues like this, 00:10:18.880 --> 00:10:21.840 and certain political issues and social issues. 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:26.800 That should apply most strongly to us, incidentally, because we're the ones 00:10:26.800 --> 00:10:29.280 for whom the Constitutional's protections were written, right? 00:10:29.280 --> 00:10:34.720 It's for their progeny, not for these aliens living in our lands. 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:35.040 But 00:10:37.280 --> 00:10:41.360 You do need men to actually challenge these things and fight it 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:42.480 out in the courts. 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:46.800 So support him if you're able to, because he's going to need 00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:49.840 support. What he's doing is important. 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:52.800 Like I said, these things have to be challenged in the courts 00:10:53.040 --> 00:10:56.800 and sometimes it will go our way and sometimes it will not. 00:10:56.800 --> 00:11:00.000 That is a matter of legal and political strategy 00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:04.240 And you know, he's not necessarily engaged in that. 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:08.080 He's not picking the optimal place to have this confrontation and then 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:11.520 get it into an optimal venue and then have the appeals path 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:12.880 and the right panel. 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:14.080 He's not planning all that stuff. 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.800 That's the sort of thing that you need attorneys on your side 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:17.840 to be doing. 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:20.480 That is something that, for instance, the NRA does. 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:22.720 I know that for a fact, I've talked to a number of 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:24.720 their attorneys, friends with some of them. 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:26.160 That is something they do, right? 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:29.040 You pick the place where you want to challenge something because you 00:11:29.040 --> 00:11:33.680 have the optimal conditions to most likely obtain the outcome that you 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:38.560 desire. I think that this is probably a better venue than many 00:11:38.560 --> 00:11:40.800 others because it's in Tennessee. 00:11:40.800 --> 00:11:46.720 Unfortunately it is not in the we'll say more staunchly conservative parts 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:50.960 of Tennessee, because he's in the Nashville area, which is it's not 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:55.120 Memphis, it could be worse, but it's, you know, not Knoxville's a 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:57.440 little better where I am. 00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:00.800 So yes, the overall I don't think he should have been arrested. 00:12:00.800 --> 00:12:01.520 He has been. 00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:04.800 It's going to be probably a pretty long fight, and they're probably 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:06.480 going to throw the book at him. 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:09.920 It looks like they've already essentially done that, but they will continue 00:12:09.920 --> 00:12:12.560 to pursue it, so support him if you can. 00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:17.920 Because he's being persecuted not because of any particular incident, but because 00:12:17.920 --> 00:12:21.920 the incident gave them the opportunity to charge a white Christian male 00:12:21.920 --> 00:12:24.880 with a crime and try to make an example of him. 00:12:24.880 --> 00:12:28.480 That's what's happening here because we have a legal system that is 00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:32.560 not a legal system It is not a matter of justice, it's 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:34.080 certainly not a justice system. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:39.040 It's a matter of injustice and persecution deliberately aimed at white Christian 00:12:39.040 --> 00:12:43.920 males. 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:50.560 Question two is sort of shifting gears, although I guess it's still 00:12:50.560 --> 00:12:55.360 a little bit legal related here. 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.880 How should a young Christian man approach the pursuit of marriage when 00:12:58.880 --> 00:13:01.840 he has developed a strong interest in a godly young woman who 00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:03.520 is significantly younger? 00:13:03.520 --> 00:13:07.520 In this particular case, a twenty-three-year-old man and a fifteen-year-old girl from 00:13:07.520 --> 00:13:09.360 a conservative Christian family. 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:11.040 He's known her for years. 00:13:11.040 --> 00:13:15.600 This was a friend passing the question to me to ask to 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:16.560 answer it. 00:13:16.560 --> 00:13:20.720 Scripture emphasizes the importance of sexual purity and the value of marriage 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:24.160 as a safeguard against immorality, in fact scripture gives marriage as the 00:13:24.800 --> 00:13:28.160 only cure for sexual temptation. 00:13:28.160 --> 00:13:33.440 It also shows examples and principles regarding betrothal, parental involvement, and readiness 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.760 for marriage in patriarchal contexts, for example, the Old Testament narratives and 00:13:38.160 --> 00:13:40.960 the emphasis on the father's role. 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:44.240 I'll comment on that in a second here. 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:48.560 Key questions for my personal situation are what does the Bible teach 00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:50.960 about appropriate age differences for marriage? 00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:54.480 Is it advisable to wait for a specific young woman who is 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:58.000 not yet of typical marrying age according to our day and age? 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:00.400 At what age do you think it is appropriate for a girl 00:14:00.400 --> 00:14:01.040 to marry? 00:14:01.040 --> 00:14:05.280 Or does the command to flee sexual temptation and the practical delay 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:08.880 in forming a household council pursuing a similarly godly wife who is 00:14:08.880 --> 00:14:11.040 closer in age? 00:14:11.040 --> 00:14:14.880 What principles would guide a decision in such a situation, especially in 00:14:14.880 --> 00:14:20.720 a secular European context, the questioner is German, where biblically minded Christian 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:24.080 women are rare, and I doubt it'll be able to find anyone 00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:25.600 else soon. 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:32.240 So I would start out by noting something linguistically that many sort 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:37.520 of gloss over when reading scripture and other old documents. 00:14:37.520 --> 00:14:42.800 When scripture speaks of marriage, and incidentally, like I said, older documents 00:14:42.800 --> 00:14:46.320 as well, they speak of two distinct things actually. 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:49.120 Because how does Scripture speak of marriage? 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:52.320 It says, for instance, when talking about the flood, right? 00:14:52.880 --> 00:14:56.320 They were marrying and being given in marriage. 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:58.000 Two different things, right? 00:14:58.000 --> 00:14:59.840 The first is the man. 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:01.360 The second is the woman. 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.080 Well women are given in marriage. 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:05.520 Who's doing the giving, right? 00:15:05.520 --> 00:15:09.040 Someone has to you can't have a gift without a giver, right? 00:15:09.280 --> 00:15:13.920 You can't have, in this case, a wife being given in marriage 00:15:13.920 --> 00:15:16.640 without someone giving her away. 00:15:16.640 --> 00:15:20.560 That's the reason we have the ceremony still in a formal marriage 00:15:20.560 --> 00:15:23.920 ceremony of the father giving away the bride. 00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:27.680 Because the father is the one who has the veto. 00:15:27.680 --> 00:15:30.320 At the very least, he's supposed to have a veto. 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:34.000 He should be involved in determining who gets to marry his daughter. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:37.120 It's one of the reasons that an unmarried woman should never be 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:38.800 outside her father's house. 00:15:38.800 --> 00:15:41.760 Unless of course, you know, her father is dead or a criminal 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:43.920 or something heinous, right? 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:48.160 Then she is the responsibility of the next closest male relative, who 00:15:48.160 --> 00:15:50.720 is of appropriate age, right? 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:52.640 That's how it goes. 00:15:52.640 --> 00:15:56.320 So a woman being given in marriage means that yes, you should 00:15:56.320 --> 00:16:00.960 absolutely ask her father for permission to marry her, for him to 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.600 give her away to you as a wife. 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:07.760 So in this case, you have an eight-year gap, right? 00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:09.120 I don't care. 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:11.360 An eight-year gap is not a big deal. 00:16:11.760 --> 00:16:15.200 The only way that an age gap starts to be a real 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:20.320 issue is when you get into like significant age, you know, 25-year 00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:20.880 age gap. 00:16:20.880 --> 00:16:22.800 Maybe don't do that. 00:16:22.800 --> 00:16:27.200 Partly because as the man, you're gonna die way before your wife 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:28.960 if you're 20 years older than her. 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:32.960 Because you're already probably going to die younger, then she will eventually 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:35.520 die. She's going to outlive you. 00:16:35.520 --> 00:16:39.120 You don't want your wife necessarily to be a widow. 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:42.640 At least you're not intending, because in this case you're basically intending 00:16:42.640 --> 00:16:45.120 for her to be a widow for decades. 00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:47.920 In this specific hypothetical, that's not the case, right? 00:16:47.920 --> 00:16:50.480 Eight years is not really a big deal. 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:53.760 No, I'm not saying that you, your friend, in this case, as 00:16:53.760 --> 00:16:57.040 a twenty-three-year-old, should marry the 15-year-old now. 00:16:57.040 --> 00:17:00.560 Because as a Western European, and I think the Western Europeans have 00:17:00.560 --> 00:17:02.400 been largely right on this, there's a little bit of a difference 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:04.240 with, you know, it's the Hajjnal line. 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:06.960 There's a little difference with Eastern Europe and certainly other parts of 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:08.000 the world. 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.400 By and large, the marriage age for women in Western Europe has 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:13.680 been around 21. 00:17:13.760 --> 00:17:15.760 21, 22, 23. 00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:18.960 Sometimes a little younger, sometimes a little older. 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:23.040 But usually that early, that first half of the twenties is about 00:17:23.040 --> 00:17:27.040 when women get married in Western European context. 00:17:27.040 --> 00:17:30.960 In the East, it's been, you know, sixteen, seventeen, 18. 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.920 I know that the age of consent's a little younger in some 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:38.240 parts of Germany, for instance, but there is, of course, the inaptly 00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:41.200 named in the US context, Romeo and Juliet laws, which are probably 00:17:41.280 --> 00:17:44.000 Proximity and age laws, right? 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:47.520 Now, of course, that's usually for things that are immoral, not necessarily 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:48.240 for marriage. 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:52.480 Marriage has different rules, but they're related laws. 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:55.600 So I think the best advice here is just wait three years 00:17:55.600 --> 00:17:57.360 and then marry her. 00:17:57.360 --> 00:18:01.760 If her father says yes, if this is, you know, you have 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.800 obviously you've known her for years, this is a family connection of 00:18:04.800 --> 00:18:05.840 some kind, right? 00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:09.280 Your families know each other and that is what I'm saying there. 00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:11.120 I s there's nothing wrong with that. 00:18:11.120 --> 00:18:13.200 By all means, it's probably a good idea. 00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:14.960 It just means that yes, you're going to have to wait for 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:15.840 three years. 00:18:15.840 --> 00:18:19.520 And so you have to practice chastity for three years. 00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:20.560 That's what men are supposed to do. 00:18:20.560 --> 00:18:23.280 It's what It's what women are supposed to do as well before 00:18:23.280 --> 00:18:24.560 marriage. So 00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:31.280 the age of marriage isn't so much a scriptural command as something 00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:34.320 that God built into creation itself. 00:18:34.320 --> 00:18:37.520 We can see when these things are supposed to take place naturally, 00:18:37.520 --> 00:18:42.320 right? We know that there's an age of sexual maturity for men 00:18:42.320 --> 00:18:43.360 and for women. 00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:47.840 We know that there's a certain sort of just general maturity, psychological 00:18:47.840 --> 00:18:50.880 maturity. No, I'm not saying that your front your you know, your 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:54.080 frontal lobe or your prefrontal cortex or whatever argument they're using these 00:18:54.080 --> 00:18:56.720 days has to be fully developed and you can't marry till you're 00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:57.360 thirty five, right? 00:18:57.360 --> 00:18:58.640 That's ridiculous. 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:04.640 But we know that there are biological realities, including fertility, that factor 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:05.200 into this. 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:08.240 And so yes, women should by and large be marrying in their 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:09.520 early twenties. 00:19:09.520 --> 00:19:12.560 Men mid to late 20s is ideal. 00:19:12.560 --> 00:19:17.520 That is how society works when things are functioning well. 00:19:17.520 --> 00:19:22.560 And so if this friend has managed to find a godly woman, 00:19:22.560 --> 00:19:27.920 by all means, he should speak to the father, arrange things so 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:31.680 that, you know, I want to marry your daughter in three years 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:34.480 when it is appropriate to do so. 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:39.440 He may very well respect you for being appropriate for doing the 00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:41.840 right thing and speaking to him about it. 00:19:41.840 --> 00:19:43.440 If that works out, great. 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:46.880 You've found a godly wife and a great gift from God. 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.840 So I think that's the way to do that here. 00:19:49.840 --> 00:19:53.200 And like you say, finding godly women can be a little bit 00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:55.520 of a challenge in some parts of the world these days. 00:19:55.520 --> 00:19:58.320 So if your friend has found one, by all means he should 00:19:58.560 --> 00:19:59.680 pursue that. 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:08.000 Question three 00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:14.160 Should we understand the devil's plan to erase or corrupt our understanding 00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:18.320 of nationhood not only as a means to desecrate creation, but also 00:20:18.320 --> 00:20:21.920 to delay the Great Commission and the end times, since there may 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.720 yet be nations not born. 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:27.680 At the time of the order to go and baptize all nations, 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:31.840 America was still approximately 1600 years from its birth, so the church 00:20:31.840 --> 00:20:35.680 at the time could not have known to baptize us specifically, and 00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:39.120 this would apply to other young nations as well. 00:20:43.520 --> 00:20:46.720 Then there's just some reasoning I was reading through quickly before answering 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:47.680 the question. 00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:52.560 So when it comes to baptizing all nations, I don't think that 00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:57.760 the command means to baptize all nations that will ever or could 00:20:57.760 --> 00:21:00.640 ever be created in perpetuity. 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:03.200 And of course there's a limit to that, right? 00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:07.680 Because you can't keep creating novel nations, you'll eventually run out of 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:08.880 stock, out of material 00:21:09.760 --> 00:21:14.720 and you wind up with a a massive generalized beige people really 00:21:14.800 --> 00:21:18.240 probably darker than beige in reality just because of the numbers. 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:18.560 But 00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:25.120 I think it was you know you're baptizing all the existing nations. 00:21:25.120 --> 00:21:28.160 You are spreading the word of God to the whole world. 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:31.120 I incidentally think that the Great Commission has been fulfilled. 00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:32.720 I think we already did that. 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:37.360 This was a common belief among Lutherans centuries ago it's somewhat fallen 00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:38.320 out of favor. 00:21:38.320 --> 00:21:40.880 There are some of the church fathers who believed in it. 00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:43.040 There are some who've argued it was completed at the time of 00:21:43.040 --> 00:21:48.000 the apostles, because the apostles went to all of the great nations, 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:51.440 which is to say all of the main groups descended from the 00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:53.040 sons of Noah. 00:21:53.040 --> 00:21:54.720 So there were those who viewed that. 00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:58.320 I don't think this is an ongoing requirement. 00:21:58.320 --> 00:22:02.000 I think we're still supposed to spread the gospel, we're still supposed 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:05.520 to bring things into subjection under Christ. 00:22:05.520 --> 00:22:06.720 All of that still applies. 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:09.600 But I think the Great Commission, we've fulfilled that. 00:22:09.600 --> 00:22:14.160 I think we fulfilled that as Europeans during the period of colonialism 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.640 and conquest. 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:16.960 So 00:22:18.080 --> 00:22:21.520 the way you can look at this is that any new nation 00:22:21.520 --> 00:22:24.320 that comes to be, and yes, ethnogenesis is very much a thing, 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:27.920 which just means the creation of of a new ethne, a new 00:22:27.920 --> 00:22:30.400 group, a new race. 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:34.400 That's a very real thing, but they have to come from founding 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:35.600 nations, right? 00:22:35.600 --> 00:22:39.520 One, more than one in this case, two or more founding nations. 00:22:39.520 --> 00:22:43.840 And so for instance, in the American context, I've routinely highlighted Americans 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:47.360 by and large are the product of three nations. 00:22:47.360 --> 00:22:51.440 Historically. There are some others now as well, and I think people 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:54.880 who listen to me recognize maybe people on X don't. 00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:56.640 Some of that's probably malicious. 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.840 People who listen to me recognize that I'm not saying that no 00:22:59.840 --> 00:23:04.480 one else could ever possibly come to America and become part of 00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:09.200 America and his children or grandchildren or great grandchildren be American, right? 00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:12.320 I'm not excluding the Norwegians, for instance. 00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:16.480 I had a handful of Norwegian friends actually growing up in Lutheran 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:20.880 school because there was a Norwegian Lutheran church where I grew up. 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:26.880 At any rate, in the US context, you have German, English, Scottish 00:23:27.120 --> 00:23:30.160 in varying proportions in different parts of the country. 00:23:30.320 --> 00:23:35.120 Those are the major three founding stocks of the American nation. 00:23:35.120 --> 00:23:37.200 And so you have Ethnogenesis. 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:42.640 Ongoing in our case, because it didn't hasn't really completed yet, but 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:48.000 you have more Scots-Irish, for instance, here in Appalachia. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:51.600 You have more of the English up in the northeast. 00:23:51.600 --> 00:23:54.240 In the Midwest, you have more German. 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:57.040 But those are the founding stock. 00:23:57.040 --> 00:24:01.520 But that means that you had to have those founding stocks to 00:24:01.520 --> 00:24:03.600 create the American nation. 00:24:03.600 --> 00:24:07.680 Well, all three of those groups, all three of those races, were 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:11.440 evangelized. You don't have to re-evangelize the American nation 00:24:12.800 --> 00:24:17.040 just because it's a new nation created from ones that had already 00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:19.040 been evangelized. 00:24:19.040 --> 00:24:20.720 That had been fulfilled. 00:24:20.720 --> 00:24:25.200 Because the Germans were evangelized, the English were evangelized, the Scots were 00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:26.880 evangelized, right? 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:32.080 So the American nation was evangelized with regard to our ancestors. 00:24:32.080 --> 00:24:38.560 After Christ issued the command to baptize all nations, but before the 00:24:38.560 --> 00:24:40.320 creation of the American nation. 00:24:40.320 --> 00:24:43.360 So like I said, I believe that that has already been fulfilled. 00:24:43.360 --> 00:24:48.720 I don't think that we have to wait until every possible combination 00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:52.400 of of men has occurred on the earth and then take the 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:53.680 gospel to them. 00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:55.920 I think that it was fulfilled. 00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:59.840 In large part during the lives of the apostles, but then certainly 00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:03.440 during the period of colonialism and European conquest. 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:08.960 So no, I don't think that to answer the other part of 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:11.520 that, I don't think that Satan is using it as a tactic 00:25:11.520 --> 00:25:14.240 to delay the second coming, I don't think he can delay it 00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:15.120 at all. 00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:19.120 I'm sure he would love to delay the second coming, because that's 00:25:19.120 --> 00:25:22.960 the beginning of the end for Satan, in his case an eternal 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:26.720 end, which is very bad news, but he can't delay that at 00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:31.120 all. All he can do is uselessly and impotently gnash his teeth 00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:34.560 and be angry and he can cause problems, but he can't change 00:25:34.560 --> 00:25:38.640 God's plans. 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:46.240 Question four Mormon and Amish influence. 00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:51.520 Will predominantly white Mormon and Amish communities in America grow into significant 00:25:51.520 --> 00:25:56.400 political or social forces due to their in-group preferences and resistance to 00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:00.800 mainstream cultural influences, and if so, how should this be addressed? 00:26:00.800 --> 00:26:04.000 So the short answer is the Amish will not the Mormons already 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:10.240 have. The Amish will not because they are the hard line Anabaptists. 00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:15.840 All Baptists are Anabaptists, because Anabaptist just means re-baptizer. 00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:18.880 It's the reason that in German it's Vida Teufe, it's re-bat literally 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:25.120 re-baptizer, but because English likes to steal words from other languages, we 00:26:25.120 --> 00:26:28.800 took the Greek, which makes some sense because baptize is a Greek 00:26:28.800 --> 00:26:31.680 verb and we just took the Greek for re to do it 00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:34.720 again. So it means rebaptizer. 00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:40.320 So all Baptists are technically anabaptists because they would all re baptize, 00:26:40.320 --> 00:26:43.600 which is not a thing, but they would all baptize someone who 00:26:43.600 --> 00:26:46.480 had already been baptized as a child, which is to say they 00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:48.720 would re-baptize. 00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:51.040 They just dropped the anabit. 00:26:51.040 --> 00:26:55.920 However, what most Baptists in the US context, which is why it 00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:59.920 is still useful to distinguish them, dropped, was the the 00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:05.520 political views and the social views to lar to a large degree 00:27:05.600 --> 00:27:08.160 of the Anabaptists, at least the historical ones. 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:12.320 Certainly the crazier groups, but even the Amish and the Mennonites and 00:27:12.320 --> 00:27:16.560 others aren't like the crazier groups in history that literally had to 00:27:16.560 --> 00:27:20.000 have imperial troops called out to put down rebellions in entire towns 00:27:20.080 --> 00:27:22.000 because of how bad they were. 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:26.080 Thankfully, the Amish and the Amish couldn't because they don't believe in 00:27:26.080 --> 00:27:27.520 technology, many of them. 00:27:27.520 --> 00:27:30.800 Thankfully, the Amish and the Baptists generally are not doing that these 00:27:30.800 --> 00:27:35.920 days. So the reason the Amish will not accomplish anything is they 00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:37.520 still hold to those political views. 00:27:37.520 --> 00:27:38.880 They don't really involve themselves in politics. 00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:44.000 They, depending on the group, more or less view holding political office 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:45.680 as a sin. 00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:49.440 So they're never going to be a real force. 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:53.920 They are a force to some degree in their own limited area, 00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:57.280 geographically speaking, culturally and economically. 00:27:57.280 --> 00:28:02.640 The Hudorites are particularly economically important, for instance, up in Canada, for 00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:03.920 some certain reasons. 00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:07.520 They are okay with technology to some degree more than the ones 00:28:07.520 --> 00:28:10.400 we have here, and so they're very good farmers. 00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:16.080 So economically they're important, culturally obviously to some degree, but they're insular, 00:28:16.080 --> 00:28:19.600 so they don't have that much influence on things. 00:28:19.600 --> 00:28:23.200 Now the Mormons, very different story. 00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:28.960 The Mormons have infiltrated the FBI and the CIA and many other 00:28:29.120 --> 00:28:33.840 federal and state groups to a very large degree, they actually have 00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:38.080 a great deal of influence, more or less behind the scenes. 00:28:38.080 --> 00:28:45.280 They don't have enough influence yet in order to really have front 00:28:45.280 --> 00:28:46.880 men a face, right? 00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:52.160 In their own context, which is to say Utah, and increasingly Nevada, 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:56.720 parts of California, parts of Idaho, they do have influence there, and 00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:00.640 so obviously they have their own politicians, they have their own groups. 00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:03.760 But on the national stage, you know, they tried, right? 00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:07.440 Romney. We all know how well Romney went. 00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:08.960 Not very. 00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:13.040 So they don't have the power to do that yet, but they 00:29:13.040 --> 00:29:16.880 have a great deal of control and influence behind the scenes. 00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:20.800 Nowhere near what the Jews have, of course, but they should not 00:29:20.800 --> 00:29:26.880 be discounted because Mormons have a lot of money and they have 00:29:27.600 --> 00:29:32.000 almost a virulent in-group preference because they have it in the sense 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:36.960 of if you don't adhere to everything the Mormon church tells you, 00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:41.120 you become an outcast and your own family disown you. 00:29:41.120 --> 00:29:43.760 We could argue whether or not that's what you're supposed to do 00:29:43.760 --> 00:29:49.120 religiously. In some cases yes, in some cases no, but they are 00:29:49.120 --> 00:29:50.240 particularly bad at it. 00:29:50.240 --> 00:29:52.640 It's one of the reasons that a lot of times I've mentioned 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:56.240 this before, if you manage to get someone out of the Mormon 00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:59.360 cult, a lot of times the most important part of that is 00:29:59.520 --> 00:30:03.920 to be is physically relocating that person and giving them another support 00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:09.840 structure because they will be harassed if they stay put and all 00:30:09.840 --> 00:30:13.360 of their support structure will evaporate overnight. 00:30:13.360 --> 00:30:18.960 So the Mormons definitely are a force in American politics and American 00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:23.120 culture, certainly economically in their own sphere. 00:30:23.120 --> 00:30:27.520 They are a very real problem going forward for the American right, 00:30:27.520 --> 00:30:30.960 particularly the Christian right, because they pretend to be Christian, they're very 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:37.040 much not Christian, and they will serve as almost a fifth column 00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:39.600 and certainly an anchor. 00:30:39.760 --> 00:30:44.400 Which is unfortunate, because by and large, the rank and file anyway, 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:47.440 maybe not the higher ups, but the rank and file Mormons are 00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:49.280 very nice men and women. 00:30:49.280 --> 00:30:51.760 They generally are hard workers. 00:30:51.760 --> 00:30:55.360 There are a lot of things that are great about them. 00:30:55.360 --> 00:31:00.400 But they're part of an evil organization that is openly blasphemous, that 00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:04.320 is anti-Christian, and that is very much our problem. 00:31:04.320 --> 00:31:06.240 Because we allowed it to fester. 00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:11.680 We allowed them to flee and set up shop and then expand. 00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:15.360 We are to blame for that because it is our territory, it 00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:18.880 is the failure of our forefathers, that's the reason we have Mormons. 00:31:19.040 --> 00:31:22.640 That is something that should have been solved long ago, and it 00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:23.440 was not. 00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:30.240 It was addressed incorrectly, inefficiently, and incompletely, which is why we have 00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:32.640 the problem today, and it's a much bigger problem than it would 00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:36.720 have been a hundred years ago, right? 00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:44.080 So Amish, no influence, you know, population wise, 00:31:44.080 --> 00:31:47.200 good to some degree because obviously there are a lot of 00:31:48.080 --> 00:31:52.160 genetically fit Amish and they're basically exclusively white. 00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:55.200 So in those terms good, if you can find an Amish wife, 00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:57.760 you're going to have some conflicts there and some problems, but maybe 00:31:57.760 --> 00:31:58.880 that'll work out. 00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:02.800 Mormons are difficult because Mormons are going to have influence, they already 00:32:02.800 --> 00:32:09.280 do. And it is not to our benefit that they do. 00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:14.800 Question five. 00:32:14.800 --> 00:32:19.840 Was the great commission in Matthew twenty-eight issued to all Christians related 00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:23.200 to the idea of the priesthood of all believers, or was it 00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:27.200 more of a directive to those in the office of public ministry, 00:32:27.200 --> 00:32:29.040 such as the apostles? 00:32:29.040 --> 00:32:31.760 And then I'll I'll read the reasoning here as well, because it's 00:32:31.760 --> 00:32:32.720 relevant for this. 00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:34.960 I am trying to have a better understanding of the duties of 00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:38.880 a believer and of the pastoral office I am curious how different 00:32:38.880 --> 00:32:44.160 readings of Ephesians four twelve play into this, as older translations include 00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:48.000 a comma dividing a phrase that seems to indicate that certain leaders 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:51.040 are given to do works of ministry, not that all saints are 00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:54.720 equipped for works of ministry. 00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:58.640 This gets into a related question that I am not going to 00:32:58.640 --> 00:32:59.520 get to this week. 00:32:59.520 --> 00:33:03.520 I have it on my list for an upcoming episode at some 00:33:03.520 --> 00:33:07.760 point, the issue of the call and Lutheran understanding of what it 00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:10.240 is and you know what is the call, who has a call, 00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:13.120 who doesn't have a call, who should be included, what power, all 00:33:13.120 --> 00:33:14.000 that sort of stuff. 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:16.080 That's why I'm not getting into it this week because it's probably 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:16.320 going to be 00:33:17.360 --> 00:33:19.280 relatively involved. 00:33:19.280 --> 00:33:25.840 However, as far as spreading the Word of God is concerned, generally 00:33:25.840 --> 00:33:31.600 speaking, all Christians do have some duty to spread the Word of 00:33:31.600 --> 00:33:33.680 God, spread the gospel. 00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:37.760 It varies according to the talents God has given you and the 00:33:37.760 --> 00:33:39.520 opportunities he gives you. 00:33:39.520 --> 00:33:42.960 So So it may be that you are the father of a 00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:49.760 household, and that other than that, you have no rank, no control, 00:33:49.760 --> 00:33:51.440 no influence in society. 00:33:51.440 --> 00:33:55.280 You know, you work on your own land, let's say, let's give 00:33:55.280 --> 00:33:56.080 an extreme example. 00:33:56.080 --> 00:33:58.320 You're out in the middle of nowhere, you work on your own 00:33:58.320 --> 00:34:01.200 land, the only other people you see are the people at your 00:34:01.200 --> 00:34:03.440 church. Once a week. 00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:09.200 Okay. Your duty is to instruct your wife, raise godly children, and 00:34:09.200 --> 00:34:13.200 do what you can with regard to your church and your neighbors. 00:34:13.200 --> 00:34:14.480 That's it. 00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:18.800 That's the extent of your duty with regard to spreading the Word 00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:20.080 of God. 00:34:20.080 --> 00:34:23.360 And so I already went over the Great Commission to some degree, 00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:27.920 but you don't have a duty to fly over to Africa or 00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:30.800 China or somewhere like that and spread the Word of God. 00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:34.240 God has given you a time and a place and put people 00:34:34.560 --> 00:34:39.520 in your sphere of influence, entrusted them to your care, your duty 00:34:39.520 --> 00:34:40.960 is to do that. 00:34:40.960 --> 00:34:44.080 To care for the things God has given to you. 00:34:44.080 --> 00:34:48.320 Now, if you are the leader of a nation, you have different 00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:53.280 duties. Because your biggest duty is to see that your entire nation 00:34:53.520 --> 00:34:55.280 obeys God. 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:58.560 And so I've said this before, and it's worth saying, and I'll 00:34:58.480 --> 00:35:00.000 probably say it again. 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:07.440 Don't necessarily envy the men who obtain an office like president or 00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:12.560 king or prince or whatever it happens to be, they are going 00:35:12.560 --> 00:35:17.040 to get some very penetrating and perhaps awkward questions from God at 00:35:17.040 --> 00:35:18.320 the judgment. 00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:23.760 Scripture is explicit that teachers have a stricter judgment, but scripture also 00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:27.440 says in many places, God is going to judge you according to 00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:30.560 what you have been given, and so, and of course what you 00:35:30.560 --> 00:35:32.880 did with it or did not do with it. 00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:35.200 Leaders have been given a great deal. 00:35:35.200 --> 00:35:38.480 Particularly, say the leader of the United States, who is the most 00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:40.640 powerful man in the world. 00:35:40.640 --> 00:35:43.280 He is going to have to answer to God for what he 00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:46.640 did or did not do with regard to the Christian religion, and 00:35:46.640 --> 00:35:50.400 seeing that it is practiced in the lands under his control and 00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:54.640 the lands in within his influence and what he did with regard 00:35:54.640 --> 00:35:56.320 to false religion. 00:35:56.320 --> 00:35:59.920 And that is on top of what he did with, you know, 00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:02.800 the economy and the culture and the social and all these other 00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:07.440 things because the king is the head of the nation. 00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:10.480 He is in sense sort of the avatar of the nation. 00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:14.240 He is going to stand before God and be judged for what 00:36:14.240 --> 00:36:16.800 his nation did or failed to do. 00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:20.880 So So maybe don't envy those men because you probably don't want 00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:22.160 that sort of judgment. 00:36:22.160 --> 00:36:26.320 Teachers receive a stricter judgment because teachers are standing up and saying, 00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:29.760 I am speaking on behalf of God when I say X, Y, 00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:30.800 and Z. 00:36:31.120 --> 00:36:34.640 So teachers get a stricter judgment as well. 00:36:34.640 --> 00:36:37.360 But this is a matter essentially a vocation, right? 00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:40.480 The question is asking about vocation. 00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:46.720 Your vocation, first and foremost, is your job, right? 00:36:46.720 --> 00:36:48.880 And your family. 00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:52.560 You have to some degree the duty to spread the word of 00:36:52.560 --> 00:36:58.160 God within the context, again, of the abilities, the influence, the power, 00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:02.240 the authority, all these things, these gifts, these attributes, the things God 00:37:02.240 --> 00:37:05.360 has entrusted to you, the things He has given you to do 00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:09.680 that. You don't have a duty to try to do what God 00:37:09.680 --> 00:37:12.400 didn't empower you to do. 00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.920 In fact, as I've said before, it is wicked to try to 00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:18.080 exercise a gift you don't have. 00:37:18.080 --> 00:37:21.120 We can use the extreme example, which makes it very easy for 00:37:21.120 --> 00:37:22.480 people to understand. 00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:26.160 If God did not give you the gift of prophecy, what do 00:37:26.160 --> 00:37:29.440 we call it when you stand up and said God told me? 00:37:30.240 --> 00:37:32.960 Well, at the best it's false teaching, it's probably blasphemy. 00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:37.840 So don't exercise gifts God didn't give you. 00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:41.760 But again, if you're ahead of a household, you at least have 00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:45.040 the duty to see that your wife stays in the faith and 00:37:45.040 --> 00:37:47.120 that you train her up in the faith, and the same for 00:37:47.120 --> 00:37:50.240 your children, and then do what you can with your neighbors in 00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:51.040 your church. 00:37:51.040 --> 00:37:56.400 That's the the basic rules there. 00:37:56.400 --> 00:38:01.280 But it's probably worth mentioning, even pastors, right, who people view as 00:38:01.680 --> 00:38:05.600 having this exceptional sort of duty, which they do to some degree. 00:38:05.600 --> 00:38:10.240 The office gets a little more prestige than it warrants, but they 00:38:10.480 --> 00:38:13.680 don't have a general duty to go to other parts of the 00:38:13.680 --> 00:38:16.480 world and spread the gospel. 00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:18.560 Because God has given them a flock. 00:38:18.560 --> 00:38:21.520 Their duty is to take care of the flock. 00:38:21.520 --> 00:38:25.280 So the general rule: take care of the things God has entrusted 00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:26.240 to you. 00:38:26.240 --> 00:38:30.080 Don't Don't go looking for what the world tells you is really 00:38:30.080 --> 00:38:32.960 super important and you should be really proud that you went and 00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:35.920 spent a week in Africa digging wells or something. 00:38:40.240 --> 00:38:46.480 Sort of a tangentially related question here, question six, and then I 00:38:46.480 --> 00:38:48.640 will try to pull some of the questions out of the chat 00:38:48.640 --> 00:38:51.280 so I don't miss them. 00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:56.400 Do you have any thoughts on this summer's LCMS election of Archbishop? 00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:59.680 Could the right candidate change the course of the denomination for the 00:38:59.680 --> 00:39:03.520 better? I imagine it would be counterproductive for someone with your notoriety 00:39:03.520 --> 00:39:05.440 to publicly endorse a candidate. 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:07.200 That's probably an understatement. 00:39:07.200 --> 00:39:10.080 But would you say there are any men on the ballot with 00:39:10.080 --> 00:39:16.800 the potential to bring real positive change at a synotical level? 00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:20.720 And then another question: do you foresee a hopeful future or are 00:39:20.720 --> 00:39:23.600 we realistically past the point of no return? 00:39:23.600 --> 00:39:27.200 So there are really two answers to this, or I guess one 00:39:27.200 --> 00:39:30.240 answer with two parts. 00:39:30.240 --> 00:39:32.880 We're not past the point of no return. 00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:33.760 So 00:39:34.720 --> 00:39:39.120 a good man could certainly stand up, God could stand up a 00:39:39.120 --> 00:39:44.240 good man, and he could change things fundamentally, return to truth. 00:39:44.560 --> 00:39:50.720 teaching, return to scripture and the confessions, and stop borrowing nonsense from 00:39:50.720 --> 00:39:55.680 the world and you know, condemning racism and stuff. 00:39:55.680 --> 00:39:56.000 But 00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:03.200 that man is probably never going to be a candidate in this 00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:08.880 sense because the entirety of the leadership of synod is constituted such 00:40:08.880 --> 00:40:11.840 that those men are deliberately screened out at every possible 00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:16.880 Some of our guys are still sneaking through in the seminaries. 00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:19.360 I'm not going to say how many, of course, but some of 00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:22.560 them certainly are, despite the witch hunts, and there are witch hunts. 00:40:22.560 --> 00:40:26.000 Despite men being called into the offices there and asked if they 00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:29.120 know Cory Mahler, that's happening. 00:40:29.120 --> 00:40:32.320 If they listen to Stone Choir, that's happening. 00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:34.960 Despite the fact that if you're caught with a Stone Choir challenge 00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:38.640 coin on a seminary campus, you'll probably be immediately cast out. 00:40:38.640 --> 00:40:40.960 Right? These things are happening. 00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:41.280 But 00:40:42.240 --> 00:40:45.920 by and large, I don't think that the leadership is going to 00:40:45.920 --> 00:40:51.920 change without something something significantly greater than a general synodical election. 00:40:51.920 --> 00:40:59.600 That's going to require change at the congregational level across many congregations, 00:40:59.600 --> 00:41:03.760 and then forcing the issue up the hierarchy. 00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:06.160 It's not going to happen from the top down. 00:41:06.160 --> 00:41:08.480 It'll be bottom up if it happens at all. 00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:11.760 I think that the best way at this point is to continue 00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:16.960 trying to take individual faithful parishes out of the LCMS. 00:41:16.960 --> 00:41:21.120 Join with other faithful parishes in your locality. 00:41:21.120 --> 00:41:24.880 Eventually build that up to you know regional and then national. 00:41:24.880 --> 00:41:27.520 Maybe there will be an opportunity in the future to take back 00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:29.680 the synod as well. 00:41:29.680 --> 00:41:32.960 If that happens, then those congregations can rejoin. 00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:35.360 There's nothing stopping them from doing that. 00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:38.080 But I think right now the best thing you can do is 00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:42.240 remove a faithful parish from the LCMS so that you are not 00:41:42.240 --> 00:41:45.520 in any way subject to faithless leadership. 00:41:45.520 --> 00:41:51.120 Like I've said before, thankfully, with regard to the LCMS for current 00:41:51.120 --> 00:41:56.800 conditions and issues, the LCMS is congregational in terms of polity, and 00:41:56.800 --> 00:41:58.880 so you can just leave. 00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:01.600 The bishop doesn't really have authority over you. 00:42:01.600 --> 00:42:04.640 The bishop can't tell you you can't take your church because your 00:42:04.640 --> 00:42:06.000 parish probably owns it. 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:09.680 Check your bylaws, make sure they haven't played any games or shenanigans 00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:11.040 there. But 00:42:13.200 --> 00:42:17.280 right now leaving the LCMS as a parish is the best path 00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:19.760 forward, unfortunately. 00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:23.360 Because faithless men have taken over. 00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:28.000 And they absolutely refuse to yield to the God of the word 00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:32.560 of God or any rebuke whatsoever, and so their judgment is going 00:42:32.560 --> 00:42:34.480 to be a fearful thing one day 00:42:39.040 --> 00:42:41.840 And it really is unfortunate because the LCMS could be the fastest 00:42:41.920 --> 00:42:44.400 growing church in the world if they would just listen. 00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:51.120 Right, I'm going to take some pull some questions out of the 00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:52.480 chat right now so that I don't miss them. 00:42:52.480 --> 00:43:00.960 I'll add them to my notes. 00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:29.200 I don't know that I'll necessarily get to this question about psychoanalysis 00:43:29.520 --> 00:43:33.120 this episode, but I will stick it on my list for the 00:43:33.120 --> 00:43:38.960 future. I will resist the temptation to make an offend comment about 00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:39.680 it. 00:43:59.200 --> 00:44:02.320 I will, however, just answer briefly a question from the chat. 00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:06.560 This is not uh an official as it were numbered question for 00:44:06.560 --> 00:44:10.560 the episode, but someone asked about putting the questions somewhere to read 00:44:10.560 --> 00:44:15.120 them. They are they are in the thread for on the forum 00:44:15.120 --> 00:44:15.920 for each episode. 00:44:15.920 --> 00:44:17.920 I try to keep that updated. 00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:21.520 It's a wiki, so anyone who is a trusted in the sense 00:44:21.520 --> 00:44:25.840 of how Discourse Software handles that, a trusted member of the community, 00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:28.960 can edit the wiki if I missed something or pasted something in 00:44:28.960 --> 00:44:29.920 the wrong spot. 00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:33.120 But I do try to keep that updated for each episode. 00:44:33.120 --> 00:44:34.720 And that's that's what I'm doing right now. 00:44:34.720 --> 00:44:38.480 I'm copying them over into that so that they are available. 00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:42.400 But you can go and find that on the forum for any 00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:43.040 of the episodes. 00:44:43.040 --> 00:44:46.960 I'll go ahead and drop that into the chat here. 00:44:46.960 --> 00:44:50.960 See if we can, you know crash my forum software. 00:44:53.360 --> 00:44:55.600 Or just really actually overload my server. 00:44:55.600 --> 00:44:57.120 The forum software shouldn't crash. 00:44:57.120 --> 00:45:00.320 But that's the link for this particular episode. 00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:02.640 So if you just scroll down to the second post, it gives 00:45:02.640 --> 00:45:04.400 the the questions there. 00:45:04.400 --> 00:45:06.800 Some are asked on the forum, and so there's a link to 00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:07.360 the topic. 00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:11.280 Some are from the chat or from X or Telegram or I 00:45:11.280 --> 00:45:13.520 have a letter sitting here that I probably won't get to this 00:45:13.520 --> 00:45:16.320 episode someone mailed me a letter to ask me questions. 00:45:16.320 --> 00:45:20.560 A little aggressive with those questions, but I'll answer them nonetheless. 00:45:20.560 --> 00:45:23.760 That's probably be next week for those. 00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:27.840 Question seven. 00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:30.880 Is our hymnity a form of teaching within the church? 00:45:30.880 --> 00:45:34.160 And if so, should we refrain from refrain from utilizing hymn texts 00:45:34.160 --> 00:45:36.800 that were written by women. 00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:40.080 And then the reasoning for it, our modern Lutheran hymnals all include 00:45:40.080 --> 00:45:45.200 hymn texts written by women, but historically the corpus of Lutheran hymnity 00:45:45.200 --> 00:45:50.480 all came from male writers sometimes with women contributing as translators. 00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:54.400 I think the general rule there is that yes, hymns should be 00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:56.400 seen as a form of teaching. 00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:59.600 And the way that you can look at this is what is 00:45:59.600 --> 00:46:00.560 the Psalter? 00:46:00.720 --> 00:46:03.440 This altar by and large is a hymnal. 00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:07.520 All of the hymns in this altar were written by men, right? 00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:10.320 And I know that some are going to be thinking, well, aren't 00:46:10.240 --> 00:46:14.480 there things in scripture that were in fact written by women and 00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:16.640 are essentially hymns, yes, of course. 00:46:16.640 --> 00:46:19.200 There's the song of Miriam, for instance. 00:46:19.200 --> 00:46:22.240 However, who wrote that down? 00:46:22.240 --> 00:46:28.240 Moses. And so Moses as a prophet, and also incidentally basically a 00:46:28.240 --> 00:46:32.800 priest and king at the time, he was giving sort of the 00:46:32.800 --> 00:46:34.320 stamp of approval, right? 00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:37.440 He is the one who ran the assessment of this is acceptable 00:46:37.520 --> 00:46:41.920 to be To be included, and so, and obviously, yes, it's scripture, 00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:46.000 so the Holy Spirit is very clearly involved, we'll say, to understate 00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:50.560 matters. And so I think that would be not the exception, but 00:46:50.560 --> 00:46:51.760 a way to look at 00:46:52.640 --> 00:46:56.480 not a blanket or a categorical prohibition on the involvement of women 00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:01.040 whatsoever. So can women write poetry and songs? 00:47:01.040 --> 00:47:02.240 Of course they can. 00:47:02.240 --> 00:47:04.640 I'm not going to say they can't do so. 00:47:05.040 --> 00:47:08.160 Most of the best poets and writers have been men, but women 00:47:08.160 --> 00:47:10.880 can do it as well, and there are some good female poets, 00:47:10.880 --> 00:47:11.360 for instance. 00:47:11.360 --> 00:47:14.080 I'm not going to list them here and now, but there are 00:47:14.080 --> 00:47:20.560 some. So could a woman help contribute to writing a hymn? 00:47:20.560 --> 00:47:23.600 I think yes, as long as it is under the supervision of 00:47:23.600 --> 00:47:24.960 her husband. 00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:28.640 So he would be the one who would have the ultimate authority 00:47:28.640 --> 00:47:31.520 there because as her as her head, he has certainly a veto, 00:47:31.520 --> 00:47:35.520 he also has a duty to see that she believes rightly and 00:47:35.520 --> 00:47:37.920 that the faith is taught rightly in his home. 00:47:37.920 --> 00:47:39.280 That's part of the issue, right? 00:47:39.280 --> 00:47:42.880 The head has certain duties, and so it'd be usurping the position 00:47:42.880 --> 00:47:46.800 of the head if the woman just did this on her own. 00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:49.920 Incidentally, I do think the same thing is probably due with true 00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:54.080 with regard to translators, and every Lutheran knows of whom I'm thinking 00:47:54.080 --> 00:47:56.480 right now, because you've seen her name at the bottom of many 00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:00.400 hymns, because she translated a lot of German hymns into English. 00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:03.200 Translation is not a mechanical thing. 00:48:03.200 --> 00:48:06.880 Translation involves a lot of judgment. 00:48:06.880 --> 00:48:11.120 And so I think that there should be male supervision there as 00:48:11.120 --> 00:48:15.360 well, because again, this is a matter of teaching in the church, 00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:18.400 because the hymns are teaching. 00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:22.320 That was one of the biggest complaints about the the Lutherans from 00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:25.360 Rome during the Reformation is that we were singing people into the 00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:28.640 Lutheran Church because our hymns were teaching the faith. 00:48:28.640 --> 00:48:29.680 That's still true. 00:48:29.680 --> 00:48:30.880 Hymns teach the faith. 00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:33.440 It's one of the best ways to teach the faith. 00:48:33.440 --> 00:48:39.760 We all know this Every single person listening probably knows some song 00:48:40.080 --> 00:48:44.400 that was used to memorize something at some point in the past, 00:48:44.400 --> 00:48:48.560 right? Maybe it's the states, maybe it's the presidents, maybe it's the 00:48:48.560 --> 00:48:49.680 capitals of the states. 00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:53.840 Whatever it is, you probably still know at least some of it 00:48:54.080 --> 00:48:55.920 because it was set to music. 00:48:55.920 --> 00:49:00.240 We learn a lot better through repetition, but also in something is 00:49:00.240 --> 00:49:01.680 set to music. 00:49:01.680 --> 00:49:05.840 So it's one of the reasons that you know bards historically could 00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:07.920 memorize these epic poems. 00:49:07.920 --> 00:49:10.400 It was partly it was set to music, it was partly that 00:49:10.400 --> 00:49:12.320 it had meter or rhyme. 00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:15.680 All of these little tricks help with human memory. 00:49:15.680 --> 00:49:19.680 So this is teaching, and no women should not be doing it 00:49:19.680 --> 00:49:21.840 unsupervised because that's inappropriate. 00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:24.160 It's usurping that position of head. 00:49:24.160 --> 00:49:27.920 It is going around the duties of the husband and always bear 00:49:27.920 --> 00:49:30.480 in mind that this is not just a matter of the husband 00:49:30.480 --> 00:49:32.960 being, I'm in charge and I do whatever I want. 00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:37.040 No, it's God has given the husband a position, and he is 00:49:37.040 --> 00:49:40.480 going to answer to God God for what he did or failed 00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:41.360 to do. 00:49:41.360 --> 00:49:45.040 So if you are a woman, if you're a wife, don't make 00:49:45.040 --> 00:49:48.480 that more difficult for your husband because he will have to answer 00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:51.440 to God for one day for what he did or did not 00:49:51.440 --> 00:49:53.120 do in that role as your head. 00:49:53.360 --> 00:49:56.080 The same thing of course is true for all women with regard 00:49:56.080 --> 00:49:59.120 to your father, at least while you're in his household, which is 00:49:59.120 --> 00:50:00.800 to say before you're married. 00:50:02.800 --> 00:50:06.320 And a related question from the chat here conveniently. 00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:09.520 What are your thoughts about a twenty year old female pursuing a 00:50:09.520 --> 00:50:10.800 law degree? 00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:14.880 I assume this is the twenty year old female in question asking 00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:19.680 here. She says she has an undergraduate degree, taking the LSAT next, 00:50:19.680 --> 00:50:22.720 however, concerning marriage and having a family and career. 00:50:22.720 --> 00:50:29.360 So, ideally speaking, women should focus on family. 00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:34.320 Finding a husband, having children, keeping a home, doing those things. 00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:37.600 That is what women are supposed to do first and foremost. 00:50:37.600 --> 00:50:41.360 That is the highest calling for a woman. 00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:44.000 One of the highest callings for a man, of course, is being 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:45.040 a godly husband. 00:50:45.040 --> 00:50:49.360 It's not exclusively because men have that sort of dual life in 00:50:49.360 --> 00:50:51.680 the home and then in the public sphere. 00:50:51.680 --> 00:50:54.320 Women are not supposed to have the public sphere part of that 00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:55.600 in the same way as a man. 00:50:55.600 --> 00:50:59.440 It's not that women are supposed to be, you know, hidden away, 00:50:59.440 --> 00:51:02.320 seen but not heard, or, you know, not seen even in some 00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:04.560 societies. It's not that. 00:51:04.560 --> 00:51:09.840 It's that God has entrusted the oversight and the maintenance of the 00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:13.040 public sphere to men, and not to women. 00:51:13.040 --> 00:51:16.640 Women have been entrusted with the private sphere. 00:51:16.640 --> 00:51:19.920 And by and large women are going to have in some ways 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:23.760 more influence even than their husbands just because of the sheer number 00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:26.240 of hours they are going to spend with their children. 00:51:26.240 --> 00:51:29.360 Men will not spend as many hours with their children while they're 00:51:29.360 --> 00:51:32.640 growing up, as will the woman, as will the mother. 00:51:32.640 --> 00:51:35.440 That's just the reality of it, that's how it works. 00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:38.160 That's incredibly important. 00:51:38.160 --> 00:51:42.400 If no one raises up the next generation in the faith, in 00:51:42.400 --> 00:51:46.800 the beliefs of the culture, in pride for your race and your 00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:50.400 nation and things like that, your history, then you have no future. 00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:55.280 The nation without mothers has no future. 00:51:55.280 --> 00:51:57.680 That is an incredibly important role. 00:51:57.680 --> 00:51:58.320 And so 00:51:59.280 --> 00:52:02.400 when anyone says that women should do that first and foremost, and 00:52:02.400 --> 00:52:05.840 that is the highest duty, that's not in any way saying that 00:52:05.920 --> 00:52:08.880 oh your place is here and you can't do these other things. 00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:11.600 It's saying the thing that you can do and no one else 00:52:11.600 --> 00:52:15.440 can do is one of the most important things in human society, 00:52:15.440 --> 00:52:18.320 it is more important than being an attorney. 00:52:18.320 --> 00:52:22.400 And so some of those are undoubtedly thinking of Hitler's speech on 00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:23.040 women, right? 00:52:23.040 --> 00:52:25.760 And that comes to mind because it's related here. 00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:27.600 One of the things that he says in that is when he 00:52:27.600 --> 00:52:30.960 says a female attorney or a female doctor 00:52:32.640 --> 00:52:36.720 that to him and I agree, I think it's how every Christian 00:52:36.720 --> 00:52:42.000 should view this, that to him is not so much an accomplishment 00:52:42.080 --> 00:52:44.560 or something of which to be proud as the woman who has 00:52:44.560 --> 00:52:46.800 five, six, seven, eight children. 00:52:46.800 --> 00:52:51.040 Because the woman who has the children has ensured that her nation 00:52:51.040 --> 00:52:52.800 will have a future. 00:52:53.200 --> 00:53:00.160 A woman who achieves the absolute heights of academic excellence or career 00:53:00.320 --> 00:53:05.760 excellence in whatever field, but has no children, has achieved less than 00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:07.760 the woman who has children. 00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:11.760 That is the simple reality of it. 00:53:11.760 --> 00:53:16.080 So I don't necessarily, and I really don't think that law school 00:53:16.080 --> 00:53:17.440 is a great thing for women. 00:53:17.440 --> 00:53:20.560 I've seen what happens to women who go to law school and 00:53:20.560 --> 00:53:22.480 it's not necessarily great. 00:53:22.480 --> 00:53:28.480 Not to insult my female friends who are attorneys or went to 00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:29.920 law school. 00:53:29.920 --> 00:53:31.920 But I don't think it's good for women. 00:53:31.920 --> 00:53:36.400 I think it is destructive in a certain way to women. 00:53:36.400 --> 00:53:41.600 And as far as I am aware, the women with whom I 00:53:41.600 --> 00:53:44.720 went to law school, who are the happiest, were the ones who 00:53:45.280 --> 00:53:47.440 never practiced law. 00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:51.440 They are the ones who got the degree and then for some 00:53:51.440 --> 00:53:55.040 reason treated that like many women treat a BA and used it 00:53:55.040 --> 00:53:59.520 to find a husband and then stopped practicing or even let their 00:53:59.520 --> 00:54:00.800 bar card lapse. 00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:03.680 And now they are housewives and mothers. 00:54:03.680 --> 00:54:05.360 They're a lot happier. 00:54:05.360 --> 00:54:07.760 Because God built women to do that. 00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:10.640 We are all happier when we are doing the things God made 00:54:10.640 --> 00:54:11.680 us to do To do. 00:54:11.680 --> 00:54:16.080 God did not make women to be politicians and attorneys and doctors. 00:54:16.080 --> 00:54:18.080 It's not because women are incapable. 00:54:18.080 --> 00:54:21.920 This is something that many men, sometimes on the right, get wrong 00:54:21.920 --> 00:54:23.600 about these things. 00:54:23.600 --> 00:54:29.440 We don't say that women can't be pick something random cancer researchers 00:54:29.760 --> 00:54:33.040 because they're dumb, because they're incapable. 00:54:33.040 --> 00:54:34.480 That's not it. 00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:38.320 It's because there are more important things women need to be doing, 00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:41.520 and there are duties that men have that women do not, and 00:54:41.520 --> 00:54:44.240 duties that women have that men do not. 00:54:44.240 --> 00:54:47.760 And so again, when we are doing the things God designed us 00:54:47.760 --> 00:54:50.720 to do, that is when we are going to be happiest. 00:54:50.720 --> 00:54:55.440 And as a twenty-year-old woman, if you go to law school, right, 00:54:55.440 --> 00:54:59.760 that's three more years of your life spent in school, three years 00:54:59.760 --> 00:55:03.040 of your peak fertility spent in school. 00:55:03.040 --> 00:55:07.200 And if you want to practice law, particularly if it's big law, 00:55:07.200 --> 00:55:09.600 it varies a little bit depending on the sort of firm for 00:55:09.600 --> 00:55:12.400 which you want to work, they are going to work you to 00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:16.160 death for probably at least three years. 00:55:16.320 --> 00:55:20.640 And then the load, the amount of work you're going to have, 00:55:20.640 --> 00:55:23.280 is not really going to change that much as you work your 00:55:23.280 --> 00:55:24.160 way up that hierarchy. 00:55:24.160 --> 00:55:25.600 You're still going to have a ton of work. 00:55:25.600 --> 00:55:28.640 It is going to demand so much of your life during these 00:55:28.640 --> 00:55:33.520 extremely important years of your life, that if marriage and a family 00:55:33.520 --> 00:55:37.120 are of any importance to you whatsoever, you are trading that for 00:55:37.120 --> 00:55:38.400 that career. 00:55:38.400 --> 00:55:40.080 That is the reality. 00:55:40.080 --> 00:55:42.720 I think it's a foolish trade because 00:55:44.240 --> 00:55:49.520 maybe you can use whatever your undergraduate degree or something is later 00:55:49.520 --> 00:55:53.920 in life because when you're 40 or 50, you still have the 00:55:53.920 --> 00:55:56.880 mental faculties, you still have the capacity, you still have the ability 00:55:56.880 --> 00:55:59.600 to do these things, and I don't think it's necessarily wrong for 00:55:59.600 --> 00:56:03.360 women to go and do some of those things later in life. 00:56:03.360 --> 00:56:07.040 But you no longer have the ability to have the children. 00:56:07.040 --> 00:56:12.080 These years, because of the reality of biology, mean you have children 00:56:12.080 --> 00:56:13.920 now or you do not have them. 00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:16.640 Sure, maybe if you marry in your thirties you can get one 00:56:16.640 --> 00:56:18.800 or two. 00:56:18.800 --> 00:56:20.160 Aim higher. 00:56:20.160 --> 00:56:21.840 Want more out of life because 00:56:23.280 --> 00:56:27.920 the number of children that is considered normal these days is completely 00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:32.320 ridiculous. None of our ancestors would have thought that was reasonable. 00:56:32.320 --> 00:56:35.360 A woman who has a full house is blessed by God. 00:56:35.360 --> 00:56:39.360 God is extremely clear in Scripture that children are a blessing from 00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:44.000 God. I don't know why anyone would not want God's blessings. 00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:45.440 It seems completely ridiculous. 00:56:45.440 --> 00:56:46.960 It's like opting to have a curse. 00:56:47.360 --> 00:56:49.280 People do that all the time as well. 00:56:49.280 --> 00:56:52.240 Why would you opt into something that is a curse from God? 00:56:52.240 --> 00:56:54.400 It seems completely insane to me. 00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:56.240 And yet people do it. 00:56:56.720 --> 00:56:59.520 And people also avoid blessing from God. 00:56:59.520 --> 00:57:03.760 It's why, for instance, when the issue of contraception comes up, a 00:57:03.760 --> 00:57:06.560 lot of times I will just start with people by saying, God 00:57:06.560 --> 00:57:08.160 is extremely clear. 00:57:08.160 --> 00:57:11.200 Children are a blessing from God. 00:57:11.200 --> 00:57:17.840 What you are doing is preventing yourself from being blessed by God. 00:57:17.840 --> 00:57:19.440 Why would you do that? 00:57:19.440 --> 00:57:22.000 I'm not saying you can't engage in some sort of you know 00:57:22.160 --> 00:57:27.280 spacing and reason and you know, planning things out according to wisdom, 00:57:27.280 --> 00:57:31.120 that is certainly something, but totally avoiding a blessing from God, that 00:57:31.120 --> 00:57:32.640 carries its own curse. 00:57:32.640 --> 00:57:36.400 You have brought that upon yourself by getting rid of the blessing, 00:57:36.400 --> 00:57:41.200 by deliberately taking an action that prevents in this sense God from 00:57:41.200 --> 00:57:42.080 blessing you, right? 00:57:42.080 --> 00:57:45.440 God his power isn't curtailed by what you did, but he's going 00:57:45.440 --> 00:57:48.880 to go ahead and say, if you don't want the blessing, fine, 00:57:48.880 --> 00:57:50.560 don't receive it. 00:57:50.560 --> 00:57:52.800 So no, I don't think that a woman attending law school is 00:57:52.800 --> 00:57:54.960 a wise decision. 00:57:54.960 --> 00:57:58.800 And I think that to be entirely blunt, if your father were 00:57:58.800 --> 00:58:01.280 doing his duty as a father, he would have already told you 00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:04.640 that. Because you are trading 00:58:06.320 --> 00:58:10.000 the most important years of your life for something that is far 00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:13.760 less important than being a wife and a mother. 00:58:13.760 --> 00:58:17.440 You will be far happier as a wife and a mother, then 00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:25.520 you would be even as a high powered attorney. 00:58:25.520 --> 00:58:30.000 Question nine. 00:58:31.440 --> 00:58:35.280 What do you make of papist photos they post of the body 00:58:35.280 --> 00:58:38.160 of Christ and the body is all bloody? 00:58:38.160 --> 00:58:40.720 Supposedly proof of transubstantiation. 00:58:40.720 --> 00:58:43.280 I don't know exactly what you are asking with this question. 00:58:44.160 --> 00:58:48.000 So if you would like to follow up in the chat, I 00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:51.760 can return to this I guess, but I guess I can just 00:58:51.760 --> 00:58:54.800 sort of comment on it generally. 00:58:54.800 --> 00:58:57.680 Transubstantiation is essentially 00:58:58.640 --> 00:58:59.600 importing 00:59:00.880 --> 00:59:06.720 philosophy and a sort of metaphysics into Christian doctrine that is the 00:59:06.720 --> 00:59:09.600 inverse of what the Reformed do with it. 00:59:09.600 --> 00:59:12.720 And so I'm obviously I'm Lutheran, I say both are wrong. 00:59:12.720 --> 00:59:18.000 The Reformed say it can't possibly be body and bread, and so 00:59:18.240 --> 00:59:21.840 it has to be just symbolic language and it has to be 00:59:21.840 --> 00:59:26.400 bread that merely represents Christ's body. 00:59:26.400 --> 00:59:30.400 The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, say it can't possibly be 00:59:30.400 --> 00:59:34.160 body and bread, and so it must be his body because he 00:59:34.160 --> 00:59:35.760 said it's his body. 00:59:35.760 --> 00:59:41.920 Lutherans look at it and say, What does Christ say? 00:59:41.920 --> 00:59:43.680 What does Scripture say? 00:59:43.680 --> 00:59:45.920 Scripture is very clear. 00:59:45.920 --> 00:59:48.800 This bread, okay, it's bread. 00:59:48.800 --> 00:59:52.000 God said it's bread, I believe it's bread. 00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:53.600 Is my body. 00:59:53.600 --> 00:59:57.360 Okay. The bread is his body. 00:59:57.360 --> 00:59:59.040 It's body and bread. 00:59:59.040 --> 01:00:00.800 I don't have to resolve that. 01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:06.000 Can I resolve that necessarily rationally in a way that's going to 01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:10.000 be comfortable, right, for all human beings, satisfying for human reason? 01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:10.960 Not necessarily. 01:00:10.960 --> 01:00:14.240 I don't personally have any problems with it with regard to philosophy 01:00:14.240 --> 01:00:15.200 or reason. 01:00:15.200 --> 01:00:18.560 I think that according to modes of presence and all those things, 01:00:18.560 --> 01:00:21.760 it makes perfect sense, but some people are uncomfortable with it. 01:00:21.760 --> 01:00:24.960 You don't have to resolve all mysteries. 01:00:24.960 --> 01:00:27.840 In fact, you shouldn't seek to resolve all mysteries. 01:00:28.480 --> 01:00:31.680 You can ponder them, you can think about them, you can read 01:00:31.680 --> 01:00:36.160 about them what God has given us, but ultimately you believe them 01:00:36.160 --> 01:00:38.400 because God has said they are true. 01:00:38.400 --> 01:00:44.080 And so when Christ says, This bread is my body, this wine 01:00:44.080 --> 01:00:48.720 is my blood, Lutherans simply say, Both are present. 01:00:48.720 --> 01:00:51.520 It's bread and body, it's wine and blood. 01:00:51.520 --> 01:00:54.960 I don't have to go farther than that, because God Himself has 01:00:54.960 --> 01:00:56.240 told me it's true. 01:00:56.240 --> 01:00:58.000 That is sufficient for me. 01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:01.520 And so we don't fall off the left side of the horse 01:01:01.520 --> 01:01:04.800 like the reformed and say it has to be bread alone. 01:01:04.800 --> 01:01:07.840 We don't fall off the right side of the horse, like the 01:01:07.840 --> 01:01:11.360 Romanists and say it has to be body alone. 01:01:11.360 --> 01:01:15.840 And we don't delve into weird metaphysics by saying, you know, the 01:01:15.840 --> 01:01:21.280 essence and the substance is changed, or the substance hasn't changed, and 01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:24.080 it's really only We don't need to get into that. 01:01:24.080 --> 01:01:26.800 Once you start importing that sort of philosophy to try to explain 01:01:26.800 --> 01:01:30.880 away what God has said, you should probably realize what you're doing 01:01:30.880 --> 01:01:32.720 is not wise. 01:01:32.720 --> 01:01:37.120 So Lutherans simply affirm what God has said in his word. 01:01:37.120 --> 01:01:40.800 It is the real presence, it's the sacramental union, it is to 01:01:40.800 --> 01:01:44.640 some degree beyond human reasoning, but so is Christ. 01:01:44.640 --> 01:01:47.600 He's a hundred percent God and a hundred percent man. 01:01:47.600 --> 01:01:49.360 Go ahead and try and resolve that. 01:01:49.360 --> 01:01:53.280 I'm obviously using that rhetorically, don't go ahead and try to resolve 01:01:53.280 --> 01:01:54.800 that because you can't. 01:01:54.800 --> 01:01:57.120 We affirm it because God said it. 01:01:57.120 --> 01:01:59.920 There are mysteries in the Christian faith, and perhaps it'd be better 01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:03.360 if we had translated sacrament as mystery, which is what it is 01:02:03.360 --> 01:02:04.160 in the Greek. 01:02:04.160 --> 01:02:06.480 It is a mystery. 01:02:06.480 --> 01:02:08.640 So it doesn't need to be resolved. 01:02:08.640 --> 01:02:10.880 It would probably better if we had translated that as mystery or 01:02:10.880 --> 01:02:14.480 at least included the word in some way, so maybe people would 01:02:14.480 --> 01:02:18.560 have a better mindset with regard to these things. 01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:20.880 There are parts of the Christian faith that you do not have 01:02:20.880 --> 01:02:22.080 to resolve. 01:02:22.080 --> 01:02:24.640 And that should be obvious philosophically. 01:02:24.640 --> 01:02:28.880 As I pointed out many, many times before, you are a finite. 01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:30.000 God is infinite. 01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:33.680 You are literally incapable of understanding everything about him. 01:02:33.680 --> 01:02:37.440 He is incomprehensible to a certain degree because he is above and 01:02:37.440 --> 01:02:42.320 beyond you in a way that itself is incomprehensible. 01:02:42.320 --> 01:02:44.080 But he's omnibenevolent. 01:02:44.080 --> 01:02:45.120 That's a great thing. 01:02:45.120 --> 01:02:48.000 We should love that we have a protector God who is so 01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:53.840 powerful he's incomprehensible but because he has guaranteed us that we will 01:02:53.840 --> 01:02:56.720 be preserved regardless of how bad things get, right? 01:02:56.720 --> 01:02:59.040 The times are cut short for the sake of the elect, for 01:02:59.040 --> 01:03:03.040 instance. Which I guess gets to a question coming up here. 01:03:03.040 --> 01:03:06.080 Someone asked about election. 01:03:06.080 --> 01:03:09.280 But I don't know what you're talking about with regard to the 01:03:09.280 --> 01:03:12.400 photos. I have not personally seen that argument. 01:03:12.400 --> 01:03:14.080 It seems silly to me on the surface. 01:03:14.080 --> 01:03:17.040 I don't know how that would connect, but 01:03:18.720 --> 01:03:22.000 I know they do try to say that there are strange miracles 01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:27.040 related to the sacrament in Roman churches, but 01:03:28.160 --> 01:03:31.200 this is almost always on the level of, you know, weeping statues 01:03:31.440 --> 01:03:34.320 that we later on find out were hooked up to a sewage 01:03:34.320 --> 01:03:35.920 line or something. 01:03:35.920 --> 01:03:40.480 So your faith shouldn't be based on weird stuff like that. 01:03:40.480 --> 01:03:44.160 Your faith is based on the fact that we have God's Word, 01:03:44.160 --> 01:03:48.480 we have a continuity of God's Word, we know that Christ existed, 01:03:48.480 --> 01:03:50.960 we know what Christ did, we know that he rose from the 01:03:50.960 --> 01:03:54.720 dead. That's the basis of your faith, and then the fact that 01:03:54.720 --> 01:03:57.120 God has given you the free gift of faith via the means 01:03:57.120 --> 01:04:00.960 of grace, usually the word, but if you were baptized as an 01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:04.000 infant as you should have been, then that is well. 01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:05.920 That's the basis of your faith. 01:04:05.920 --> 01:04:10.400 The basis of your faith is not a crying statue or whatever 01:04:10.400 --> 01:04:16.000 odd claim you get from various corners of the internet. 01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:16.880 Let's see. 01:04:16.880 --> 01:04:18.880 Question ten. 01:04:18.880 --> 01:04:22.960 What is your read on the use of sanctified or made holy 01:04:22.960 --> 01:04:28.240 in 1 Corinthians 7 14 in reference to the unbelieving spouse? 01:04:29.120 --> 01:04:32.640 What are the effects of this sanctification on the unbelieving spouse? 01:04:32.640 --> 01:04:39.120 So So I'll open that up. 01:04:39.280 --> 01:04:41.440 I think I'll just go ahead and read it instead of putting 01:04:41.440 --> 01:04:43.600 it up on the screen since I think we all already know 01:04:43.600 --> 01:04:45.280 what it is and it's very short. 01:04:45.280 --> 01:04:48.480 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and 01:04:48.480 --> 01:04:51.520 the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. 01:04:51.520 --> 01:04:55.120 Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is they are 01:04:55.120 --> 01:04:59.520 holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so on 01:04:59.520 --> 01:05:02.160 and so forth. 01:05:02.160 --> 01:05:06.080 So the key here, which of course is contained in what I 01:05:06.080 --> 01:05:09.840 just read, is that the children are considered clean, which is to 01:05:09.840 --> 01:05:12.800 say holy, which is to say set apart, which is to say 01:05:13.040 --> 01:05:14.880 they're part of the church. 01:05:14.880 --> 01:05:18.160 This goes back to infant baptism and things like that, of course. 01:05:18.160 --> 01:05:21.840 Children are part of the church if they have a believing parent. 01:05:21.840 --> 01:05:27.200 Preferably two believing parents, but one believing parent, very clearly, according to 01:05:27.200 --> 01:05:28.880 God, is is sufficient. 01:05:28.880 --> 01:05:31.040 Yes, they still have to be raised in the faith. 01:05:31.040 --> 01:05:35.280 Yes, apostasy is possible, you can walk away from the faith. 01:05:35.280 --> 01:05:40.320 But they are, by default, as it were, part of the church. 01:05:40.320 --> 01:05:45.280 They are covered by that because they belong to a believer. 01:05:45.280 --> 01:05:49.200 Now, again, raise them in the faith, baptize them, do the things 01:05:49.200 --> 01:05:52.160 you're supposed to do. 01:05:52.160 --> 01:05:55.680 The other part of this, are you saved by the faith of 01:05:55.680 --> 01:05:56.560 another person? 01:05:56.560 --> 01:05:58.240 Absolutely not. 01:05:58.240 --> 01:06:01.680 The way that you can be sanctified by your spouse is your 01:06:01.680 --> 01:06:07.680 spouse exemplifying and demonstrating for you that faith, that Christian belief and 01:06:07.680 --> 01:06:09.680 bringing you into the church by that, right? 01:06:09.680 --> 01:06:12.640 And this there are other passages in scripture that speak of this, 01:06:12.640 --> 01:06:16.800 right? The good behavior and things like that, winning over your spouse 01:06:16.800 --> 01:06:18.320 to the Christian religion. 01:06:18.320 --> 01:06:20.160 Which is what you're supposed to do if you happen to be 01:06:20.480 --> 01:06:21.920 married to an unbeliever. 01:06:21.920 --> 01:06:25.280 You're not supposed to marry an unbeliever, but if you came to 01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:29.440 the faith after your marriage, then yes, part of what you're supposed 01:06:29.360 --> 01:06:31.680 to do, one of your key duties as a spouse who is 01:06:31.680 --> 01:06:35.520 a believer, married to an unbeliever, is to bring the unbeliever to 01:06:35.520 --> 01:06:41.120 faith. But unless the unbeliever is brought to faith, the unbeliever is 01:06:41.120 --> 01:06:42.480 not saved by your faith. 01:06:42.960 --> 01:06:47.440 So the sanctification can happen in the sense of the other spouse 01:06:47.680 --> 01:06:50.720 by bringing the spouse into the church, or in the sense of 01:06:50.720 --> 01:06:54.880 the children, by being the child of a believer. 01:06:55.120 --> 01:06:58.400 So there's two different senses there, but they're both right there in 01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:01.520 the verse, particularly the one about otherwise your children to be unclean, 01:07:01.520 --> 01:07:04.960 which clearly is, but as it is they are holy. 01:07:04.960 --> 01:07:08.640 So they're holy because they're born to a believer, and because this 01:07:08.640 --> 01:07:11.680 promise is for you and for your children, right? 01:07:11.680 --> 01:07:12.800 That's how God works. 01:07:12.800 --> 01:07:16.400 God works through generations, he works down through lines, he works through 01:07:16.400 --> 01:07:17.840 nations, through races. 01:07:17.840 --> 01:07:19.920 It's not so much individuals. 01:07:19.920 --> 01:07:24.640 Individuals are important because only an individual can have faith, that personal 01:07:24.640 --> 01:07:32.000 faith, but God works via these means, these relationships, particularly lines 01:07:32.000 --> 01:07:34.480 of human beings, down through history. 01:07:34.720 --> 01:07:38.560 There aren't genealogies in history because God doesn't care. 01:07:38.560 --> 01:07:43.040 Right. Actually take a sip of my drink here. 01:07:43.040 --> 01:07:48.560 Which is not the prettiest color, but it tastes good. 01:07:51.360 --> 01:07:55.440 And despite the fact that I pointed out the sugar-free syrups in 01:07:55.440 --> 01:07:59.040 the chat the other day, these are the sugar variety. 01:07:59.040 --> 01:08:00.720 I just felt like having something a little sweet. 01:08:04.720 --> 01:08:08.000 See, I have a spot for question eleven, but no question, so 01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:09.840 maybe I can pull one from the chat so I don't have 01:08:09.840 --> 01:08:11.120 to renumber things. 01:08:21.040 --> 01:08:25.120 I don't see a question in the chat that I'm going to 01:08:25.120 --> 01:08:26.960 answer this episode. 01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:29.200 Someone asked about Michael Heiser. 01:08:29.680 --> 01:08:32.000 Uh I'll just make that question eleven because then I don't have 01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:34.000 to renumber my list. 01:08:34.000 --> 01:08:36.160 So what do I think about Michael Heiser? 01:08:36.160 --> 01:08:40.480 I think that Michael Heiser goes way overboard with 01:08:41.440 --> 01:08:44.080 what he does with scripture. 01:08:44.640 --> 01:08:48.640 That being said, in saying that I think he goes overboard, it 01:08:48.640 --> 01:08:52.560 does imply, and I am making explicit, I don't think he's entirely 01:08:52.560 --> 01:08:54.720 unwarranted about all of it. 01:08:54.720 --> 01:08:56.400 I read some of his stuff. 01:08:56.400 --> 01:08:58.560 I didn't find that compelling. 01:08:58.560 --> 01:09:03.280 I would liken it to perhaps once saved, always saved, and the 01:09:04.240 --> 01:09:08.320 sort of universal atonement, you know, that all shall be saved is 01:09:08.320 --> 01:09:08.800 the name of the book. 01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:10.240 I would liken it kind of to that. 01:09:10.240 --> 01:09:12.720 That's David Bentley Hartz, the author of that one. 01:09:12.720 --> 01:09:16.400 And I wrote an essay critiquing that one. 01:09:16.400 --> 01:09:17.760 Obviously, he's wrong. 01:09:17.760 --> 01:09:21.040 Scripture does not teach that all will be saved. 01:09:21.040 --> 01:09:25.440 But with regard to Heiser, I think what he really does is 01:09:25.440 --> 01:09:29.840 he takes some parts of Scripture that are often ignored, and then 01:09:29.840 --> 01:09:33.680 he goes too far with them because God doesn't tell us that 01:09:33.680 --> 01:09:38.640 much about these subjects and so you get into speculation almost immediately. 01:09:38.640 --> 01:09:43.440 Which is why I don't really address them in any depth, because 01:09:43.440 --> 01:09:46.000 God hasn't told me. 01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:49.440 I can't discern it from nature. 01:09:49.440 --> 01:09:55.040 So I can't just acquire the information, the knowledge myself, and God 01:09:55.040 --> 01:09:56.960 has not revealed it in His Word. 01:09:56.960 --> 01:10:03.280 So So to give a specific example, the word archon appears in 01:10:03.280 --> 01:10:07.280 many places in scripture, obviously in the Greek. 01:10:07.280 --> 01:10:12.480 So there are rulers, and there are other ranks as well of 01:10:12.480 --> 01:10:17.200 angels and others listed in Scripture, but we aren't told anything about 01:10:17.200 --> 01:10:22.400 them. So we know they exist, we know they do something, we 01:10:22.400 --> 01:10:27.360 know from Job that God has a counsel, but that's about all 01:10:27.360 --> 01:10:28.480 we know. 01:10:28.480 --> 01:10:31.600 And so given that that is all we know, and also incidentally, 01:10:31.600 --> 01:10:36.000 I think he misinterprets that verse in the Psalms, given that's all 01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:39.920 we know, we can't really do anything with it. 01:10:39.920 --> 01:10:44.160 So, another aspect of it, something we do actually know, we know 01:10:44.160 --> 01:10:46.240 there's such a thing as a national angel. 01:10:46.240 --> 01:10:50.880 There's an angel responsible for any given nation. 01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:54.400 Now, with regard to ethnogenesis and the creation of new nations and 01:10:54.400 --> 01:10:58.720 things like that and miscegenation, all that, we're not told how that 01:10:58.720 --> 01:11:02.240 works. And so anything on that would just be speculation. 01:11:02.240 --> 01:11:05.280 I do think that, for instance, there is a national angel of 01:11:05.280 --> 01:11:09.760 America, because America is a very distinct nation, an important nation, one 01:11:09.760 --> 01:11:11.840 God is permitted to endure. 01:11:11.840 --> 01:11:16.560 So I think that there probably is a national angel for America 01:11:17.200 --> 01:11:22.720 We know that, you know, we see scripture speaking of the sons 01:11:22.720 --> 01:11:23.520 of God, right? 01:11:23.520 --> 01:11:26.720 Numbered according to the sons of God. 01:11:26.720 --> 01:11:29.840 Tying these things together, it seems clear there's a national angel, and 01:11:29.840 --> 01:11:33.600 then you have, you know, Michael and the national angel of Persia 01:11:33.600 --> 01:11:35.440 are mentioned, and things like that. 01:11:35.440 --> 01:11:37.440 So we know that's real. 01:11:37.440 --> 01:11:41.200 But beyond that, we're not told anything about it. 01:11:41.200 --> 01:11:41.920 So So 01:11:42.960 --> 01:11:46.960 are the nations that went well and truly off the rails into 01:11:46.960 --> 01:11:50.320 demon worship, did their national angel follow Satan? 01:11:50.320 --> 01:11:52.720 Is that part of the equation there? 01:11:52.720 --> 01:11:54.960 Are those of us who are part of nations that were more 01:11:54.960 --> 01:11:58.560 faithful, did our national angel remain faithful to God? 01:11:58.880 --> 01:12:03.120 I think you can reasonably argue that, but you can't conclude it 01:12:03.120 --> 01:12:06.880 is necessarily true because Scripture is silent on the issue. 01:12:06.880 --> 01:12:10.400 We know there are faithful angels, we know there are fallen angels, 01:12:10.400 --> 01:12:13.920 and we know according Revelation that one third fell. 01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:17.440 Beyond that it's speculation, and so I think the big problem with 01:12:17.440 --> 01:12:21.280 Heiser is that so much of it is speculative. 01:12:21.280 --> 01:12:25.520 He goes off the rails into stuff God has not revealed to 01:12:25.520 --> 01:12:28.880 us and that we simply have to go, this is what God 01:12:28.880 --> 01:12:32.640 said, I believe what God said, and I'm not going to go 01:12:32.640 --> 01:12:38.560 beyond that because all of this territory is uncertain. 01:12:38.560 --> 01:12:43.680 We shouldn't desire to investigate these mysteries that have not been revealed 01:12:43.680 --> 01:12:44.080 to us. 01:12:44.080 --> 01:12:46.480 You can ponder things that are a mystery. 01:12:47.600 --> 01:12:52.800 But when you're trying to develop something concrete about things that must 01:12:52.800 --> 01:12:55.520 be revealed for you to know them but have not been revealed, 01:12:55.520 --> 01:12:57.280 that's dangerous territory. 01:12:57.280 --> 01:12:59.520 That's the sort of thing Satan wants you to do. 01:12:59.520 --> 01:13:03.200 He wants you to focus on something that is fundamentally unknowable to 01:13:03.200 --> 01:13:06.320 you, because that is a waste of your time and effort that 01:13:06.320 --> 01:13:10.320 could be spent on something that is actually concrete and constructive with 01:13:10.320 --> 01:13:12.240 regard to the Christian faith. 01:13:12.240 --> 01:13:15.840 Ponder the Psalms instead of reading Michael Heiser. 01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:21.200 Much better use of your time. 01:13:21.200 --> 01:13:21.920 Question 01:13:22.880 --> 01:13:23.760 twelve 01:13:28.720 --> 01:13:33.440 Must I capitulate to the capitalist system by subjecting myself to debt 01:13:33.440 --> 01:13:36.320 slavery via mortgage in order to be a homeowner? 01:13:36.320 --> 01:13:40.000 I have nowhere near enough money for land and hate renting basement 01:13:40.000 --> 01:13:45.760 suites. The answer the short answer these days is pretty much yes. 01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:50.800 You are unless you come from wealth, which you do not, as 01:13:50.800 --> 01:13:55.200 your question reveals, or have a family member who can loan you 01:13:55.200 --> 01:13:58.080 the money or something like that and be a Christian and not 01:13:58.080 --> 01:13:59.520 charge you interest. 01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:04.400 Unless those opportunities are open in your particular case, mortgage is the 01:14:04.400 --> 01:14:07.200 only way to go these days because that's the way our system 01:14:07.200 --> 01:14:08.480 is constructed. 01:14:08.480 --> 01:14:13.600 It is unfortunate, it is wicked, but Christians are permitted to use 01:14:13.600 --> 01:14:17.280 the imperial laws, as the saying goes. 01:14:17.280 --> 01:14:17.760 So So 01:14:19.120 --> 01:14:22.160 that's probably the only way you can actually manage to 01:14:23.120 --> 01:14:26.160 Own property in this day and age. 01:14:26.160 --> 01:14:30.080 And yes, you probably would rather be paying on a mortgage than 01:14:30.080 --> 01:14:31.280 just paying rent. 01:14:31.280 --> 01:14:34.000 I don't object necessarily to renting. 01:14:34.000 --> 01:14:35.360 I want to be clear about that. 01:14:35.360 --> 01:14:38.560 I think that for many people that's probably a great way to 01:14:38.560 --> 01:14:43.760 go because the reality is there are advantages to renting. 01:14:43.760 --> 01:14:48.160 I've rented before, I rented in undergrad, I rented in law school. 01:14:48.160 --> 01:14:50.800 I don't rent now, so that's why you know I can put 01:14:50.800 --> 01:14:52.800 a but I can put as many holes in the wall as 01:14:52.800 --> 01:14:54.960 I want, and no one can tell me no. 01:14:54.960 --> 01:14:58.480 The problem is, I have to fix all the holes in the 01:14:58.480 --> 01:15:04.480 wall. I had to fix at three or four in the morning, 01:15:04.480 --> 01:15:08.320 whatever it was, a leak in the pipes, because I woke up 01:15:08.320 --> 01:15:12.000 to get some water and I heard hissing in the wall. 01:15:12.000 --> 01:15:13.520 That's my responsibility. 01:15:13.520 --> 01:15:17.200 I can't just call a landlord and say, hey, by the way, 01:15:17.200 --> 01:15:21.360 there are advantages to renting, there are advantages to owning, there are 01:15:21.360 --> 01:15:22.560 drawbacks to each as well. 01:15:23.440 --> 01:15:26.160 For some men it makes more sense to rent. 01:15:26.160 --> 01:15:28.720 For some men it makes more sense to own your own home 01:15:28.720 --> 01:15:30.000 and property. 01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:34.640 You know better than I do which kind of man you are. 01:15:34.640 --> 01:15:40.240 That being said, rent prices should be much, much lower. 01:15:40.240 --> 01:15:46.480 And being a landlord should not be someone's full time occupation. 01:15:46.480 --> 01:15:50.240 Unless it's in the sense of you are the person who is 01:15:50.240 --> 01:15:55.920 orchestrating upkeeping the property, making sure you comply with all the various 01:15:55.920 --> 01:15:59.840 laws and safety measures and dealing with you know the surrounding property, 01:15:59.840 --> 01:16:01.440 the land, the landscape, all that stuff. 01:16:01.440 --> 01:16:04.000 If you're doing all that stuff, that's an actual job. 01:16:04.000 --> 01:16:05.680 That's a constructive job. 01:16:05.680 --> 01:16:08.400 If you just own a bunch of land and you're sitting there 01:16:08.400 --> 01:16:12.400 collecting passive income, that's all you do? 01:16:12.400 --> 01:16:15.120 You are not being a productive member of society, you are not 01:16:15.120 --> 01:16:17.760 working to earn your bread, and that should not be allowed. 01:16:17.760 --> 01:16:19.600 That's impermissible. 01:16:19.600 --> 01:16:24.960 So, rent prices should be lower, so should mortgage as well. 01:16:24.960 --> 01:16:29.360 Our system is, as you say, incredibly corrupt and wicked, but the 01:16:29.360 --> 01:16:32.400 reality is yes, you're going to have to take out a mortgage 01:16:32.400 --> 01:16:36.080 in order to actually afford a home, unless you come from money, 01:16:36.080 --> 01:16:39.040 in which case you would not be asking me the question, because 01:16:39.040 --> 01:16:41.920 you would just have been gifted the home by your parents or 01:16:41.920 --> 01:16:51.440 something. See, question thirteen. 01:16:51.520 --> 01:16:53.120 I think I will do two 01:16:54.000 --> 01:16:54.720 more questions. 01:16:54.720 --> 01:16:58.080 I'm not going to run to two hours this time, but running 01:16:58.080 --> 01:17:01.680 a little bit over doesn't bother me, so. 01:17:01.680 --> 01:17:04.800 And if it bothers anyone, they can just stop watching, so that's 01:17:04.800 --> 01:17:06.160 not a problem for anyone who's listening 01:17:07.280 --> 01:17:08.880 Question thirteen. 01:17:08.880 --> 01:17:10.880 How do we go about predestination? 01:17:10.880 --> 01:17:12.800 This is the one I mentioned earlier, which is why I wanted 01:17:12.800 --> 01:17:14.240 to get to it. 01:17:14.240 --> 01:17:18.640 Is it as I believe God sees all possibilities and that is 01:17:18.640 --> 01:17:20.400 some kind of form of predestination. 01:17:20.400 --> 01:17:24.400 Otherwise, how would predestination make any sense in a religion where we 01:17:24.400 --> 01:17:26.080 are called to repentance? 01:17:26.080 --> 01:17:29.440 And so what you're speaking of, at least for Lutherans, would be 01:17:29.440 --> 01:17:33.120 intuitu fidei, which is to say, in view of future 01:17:34.160 --> 01:17:37.760 faith. And I say future in parentheses there because future is not 01:17:37.760 --> 01:17:40.560 actually in the Latin, but it's what's implied. 01:17:40.560 --> 01:17:44.240 That's the view that God looks forward in time, sees that you 01:17:44.240 --> 01:17:47.040 will believe, and then elects you in eternity because you will believe 01:17:47.040 --> 01:17:48.960 in time. 01:17:48.960 --> 01:17:51.600 I know there are some people who defend that view, and there 01:17:51.600 --> 01:17:55.200 are two different ways of looking at that view. 01:17:55.200 --> 01:17:59.760 One is Orthodox Lutheranism, one is what we would not call Orthodox 01:17:59.760 --> 01:18:06.640 Lutheranism. One is that God, knowing all things, knows that in the 01:18:06.640 --> 01:18:09.120 future He will give you the free gift of faith, and so 01:18:09.200 --> 01:18:11.280 in view In view of the free gift of faith that he 01:18:11.280 --> 01:18:14.240 will give you in time, he elects you in eternity. 01:18:14.240 --> 01:18:17.520 Which is really just arguing about the order of operations, right? 01:18:17.520 --> 01:18:21.280 Does God logically because obviously time's not a matter here, but does 01:18:21.280 --> 01:18:25.280 God logically elect you first and then give you faith in time, 01:18:25.280 --> 01:18:27.680 or does God decide to give you faith and that numbers you 01:18:27.680 --> 01:18:28.880 among the elect? 01:18:28.880 --> 01:18:33.440 I think it's simultaneous personally, so I don't think there's any Arguing 01:18:33.440 --> 01:18:34.800 about it seems insane to me. 01:18:34.800 --> 01:18:36.800 I it's arguing about how many angels fit on the head of 01:18:36.800 --> 01:18:37.680 a pen, right? 01:18:37.680 --> 01:18:40.480 This is what someone with too much time on his hand hands 01:18:40.480 --> 01:18:42.480 tends to argue. 01:18:42.480 --> 01:18:47.040 I think that the key difference here, and this kind of ties 01:18:47.200 --> 01:18:50.320 into question 14 as well, so maybe I'll save some of this 01:18:50.320 --> 01:18:52.400 for question 14. 01:18:53.520 --> 01:18:58.400 Yeah, for question 14, it's how we view election, what election is. 01:18:58.400 --> 01:19:01.440 That's my preliminary answer for question 14. 01:19:01.440 --> 01:19:05.600 But for this one, election is a mystery. 01:19:05.600 --> 01:19:08.320 It is another one of those mysteries in scripture. 01:19:08.320 --> 01:19:12.000 We do not know exactly how all of this operates. 01:19:12.000 --> 01:19:15.840 What we do know is enough for us to be secure in 01:19:15.840 --> 01:19:18.800 our faith, in our future, in our eternity. 01:19:18.800 --> 01:19:22.480 Because God has said that the times of tribulation near the end 01:19:22.480 --> 01:19:25.600 are cut short for the sake of the elect, none of the 01:19:25.600 --> 01:19:27.040 elect will be lost. 01:19:27.040 --> 01:19:29.680 Christ will lose none of the sheep out of his hand. 01:19:29.680 --> 01:19:32.560 Those who are elect will certainly be saved if you're elect, your 01:19:32.640 --> 01:19:34.560 name is in the Lamb's Book of Life. 01:19:34.560 --> 01:19:37.600 All of this stuff is in there in Scripture. 01:19:37.600 --> 01:19:42.160 And we know that God does this in time because he elected 01:19:42.160 --> 01:19:46.960 an eternity past and he accomplishes this in time via the means 01:19:46.960 --> 01:19:51.760 of grace by giving you faith via the word via baptism and 01:19:51.760 --> 01:19:54.880 then strengthening your faith via the sacrament of the table, right? 01:19:54.880 --> 01:19:56.160 The Lord's Supper. 01:19:56.160 --> 01:19:58.880 That's how it works. 01:19:58.880 --> 01:19:59.040 So 01:20:00.560 --> 01:20:05.680 just because you are called to repent doesn't mean that predestination is 01:20:05.680 --> 01:20:10.080 incoherent. It's part of God's system. 01:20:10.080 --> 01:20:13.040 You sin, you fall, you repent. 01:20:13.040 --> 01:20:16.800 But the reason you are able to do that is because God 01:20:16.800 --> 01:20:20.320 gave you the free gift of faith via the means of grace 01:20:20.480 --> 01:20:24.080 because because you are numbered among the elect. 01:20:24.080 --> 01:20:26.960 And now I want to get to question fourteen because that is 01:20:27.120 --> 01:20:29.920 a second question from the same person, but it's the most important 01:20:30.160 --> 01:20:31.840 part of this. 01:20:31.840 --> 01:20:36.560 Because it's how you view election that matters and in order to 01:20:36.560 --> 01:20:41.520 have that right framing for this, you need to understand what election 01:20:41.520 --> 01:20:45.360 is, how you class it sort of into which bucket it goes. 01:20:45.360 --> 01:20:46.720 So question fourteen. 01:20:47.440 --> 01:20:52.640 And a slight add-on, is the predestination belief in Calvinism basically satanic 01:20:52.720 --> 01:20:56.320 because it makes God a monster, as he makes people just to 01:20:56.320 --> 01:20:58.400 torture them in hell? 01:20:59.360 --> 01:21:02.880 And And I don't worry about you know offending any of the 01:21:02.880 --> 01:21:07.200 Reformed listeners here, because you Reformed know exactly what Lutherans believe about 01:21:07.440 --> 01:21:12.080 the Calvinistic formulation of double predestination, as we call it, and some 01:21:12.080 --> 01:21:13.120 of you do as well. 01:21:13.280 --> 01:21:16.560 You know what I believe, because the Reformed tend to read a 01:21:16.560 --> 01:21:18.480 little more than most other groups. 01:21:18.480 --> 01:21:21.840 And so you probably know the Lutheran view because you've probably seen 01:21:21.840 --> 01:21:26.560 it contrasted in your literature On predestination. 01:21:26.560 --> 01:21:29.200 So yes, I do think that the Reformed are wrong. 01:21:29.200 --> 01:21:30.480 And I believe that the 01:21:31.360 --> 01:21:33.760 Roman Catholics are wrong in this as well, because they sort of 01:21:33.760 --> 01:21:35.120 minimize election. 01:21:35.120 --> 01:21:37.920 They sort of goes under the rug for them. 01:21:38.240 --> 01:21:40.800 The Reformed pay a little too much attention to it, the Roman 01:21:40.800 --> 01:21:44.400 Catholics pay a little too little attention to it. 01:21:44.400 --> 01:21:47.600 The right way to view predestination is this. 01:21:47.600 --> 01:21:52.080 Fundamentally, you have to start with predestination or election, the terms are 01:21:52.080 --> 01:21:55.680 interchangeable. We tend to use election more pre more than predestination, the 01:21:55.840 --> 01:21:58.720 reform tend to use predestination. 01:21:58.720 --> 01:22:02.400 It is gospel, not law. 01:22:02.400 --> 01:22:07.360 So if you look at election and you view it as cause 01:22:07.360 --> 01:22:10.320 for despair, you're viewing it wrongly. 01:22:10.320 --> 01:22:12.080 You are viewing it as law. 01:22:12.080 --> 01:22:13.360 It's not law. 01:22:13.360 --> 01:22:15.760 So if you view it as what does it matter what I 01:22:15.760 --> 01:22:19.760 do in life because if God did not elect me in eternity 01:22:19.760 --> 01:22:22.960 past, then I cannot possibly be saved? 01:22:22.960 --> 01:22:24.880 That's not how you look at it. 01:22:24.880 --> 01:22:28.000 Because it's gospel, it's not law. 01:22:28.000 --> 01:22:31.520 The reason it is gospel is because the right way to look 01:22:31.520 --> 01:22:34.000 at election and the way that Scripture teaches it, go read all 01:22:34.000 --> 01:22:35.680 the verses about election. 01:22:35.680 --> 01:22:37.600 Go ahead and test what I am saying here. 01:22:37.600 --> 01:22:39.760 See if what I am saying is consonant with the Word of 01:22:39.760 --> 01:22:44.080 God. The way that Scripture speaks of election is in terms of 01:22:44.080 --> 01:22:49.040 security. It's in terms of comfort because it is gospel. 01:22:49.040 --> 01:22:54.240 How you should view election is this Yes I have fallen, yes, 01:22:54.160 --> 01:22:55.120 I have sinned. 01:22:54.960 --> 01:22:56.800 and you know, I have sinned again. 01:22:56.800 --> 01:22:58.240 Maybe it's a besetting sin. 01:22:58.240 --> 01:23:02.240 It's a particular sin that you've fallen for a thousand times before. 01:23:02.240 --> 01:23:04.960 You look at it by saying, Yes, I've sinned. 01:23:04.960 --> 01:23:06.480 Yes, I've fallen. 01:23:06.480 --> 01:23:08.320 However, yes. 01:23:08.320 --> 01:23:12.400 God has elected me unto salvation. 01:23:12.400 --> 01:23:16.640 He gave me the free gift of faith via my baptism, via 01:23:16.640 --> 01:23:17.760 the Word. 01:23:17.760 --> 01:23:21.440 He has bestowed upon me this great gift, and He will certainly 01:23:21.440 --> 01:23:24.720 see it to fruition, and he has assured me of that in 01:23:24.720 --> 01:23:28.640 his word, and that doctrine is called election. 01:23:28.640 --> 01:23:31.680 Election is comfort to the saints. 01:23:31.680 --> 01:23:34.720 And for those who are outside the church who do not have 01:23:34.720 --> 01:23:38.160 faith, it doesn't matter what it is, because they don't believe in 01:23:38.160 --> 01:23:39.280 it either way. 01:23:39.280 --> 01:23:41.600 They are not going to believe that it's law, they are not 01:23:41.600 --> 01:23:44.240 going to believe that it's gospel because they do not have faith. 01:23:44.240 --> 01:23:48.400 And so anyone who has faith and reads the doctrine of election, 01:23:48.400 --> 01:23:53.200 reads the verses that treat the doctrine, recognizes this is gospel because 01:23:53.200 --> 01:23:56.640 it is God saying he will not lose me from his hands. 01:23:56.640 --> 01:23:58.800 This is nothing but good news. 01:23:58.800 --> 01:24:01.040 It's not law, it's not a cause for despair. 01:24:01.600 --> 01:24:05.120 It's a cause for comfort in times of tribulation and testing and 01:24:05.120 --> 01:24:07.920 trial. It is when you look at your life and you see, 01:24:07.920 --> 01:24:09.360 my life's a mess. 01:24:09.360 --> 01:24:12.400 I have all these different sins that I commit. 01:24:12.400 --> 01:24:15.280 I don't read the scripture as much as I should, I don't 01:24:15.280 --> 01:24:18.400 pray as often as I should, I keep doing this thing that 01:24:18.400 --> 01:24:21.760 I shouldn't be doing, I have wicked thoughts and all these other 01:24:21.760 --> 01:24:22.320 things, right? 01:24:22.320 --> 01:24:24.400 All the things that Satan is trying to whisper in the back 01:24:24.400 --> 01:24:27.040 of your head, saying you're a horrible person, you're going to hell. 01:24:27.040 --> 01:24:28.720 He wants you to despair. 01:24:28.720 --> 01:24:32.240 What God says in His Word is don't despair. 01:24:32.240 --> 01:24:34.160 One, it is finished. 01:24:34.160 --> 01:24:35.920 Christ already did all the work. 01:24:35.920 --> 01:24:39.600 There's nothing left for you to do that is necessary for your 01:24:39.600 --> 01:24:44.320 salvation. Good works are great, good works are rewarded, they will not 01:24:44.320 --> 01:24:48.960 save you, because it is finished, it was finished on the cross, 01:24:48.960 --> 01:24:50.480 already done for you. 01:24:50.480 --> 01:24:52.080 And then election. 01:24:52.080 --> 01:24:55.360 Even though you fall, even though you sin, because you are still 01:24:55.360 --> 01:24:58.160 in the fallen world, the sinful flesh, you are still tempted, the 01:24:58.160 --> 01:25:02.560 devil is at your hand, all these problems that you have, right? 01:25:02.560 --> 01:25:06.240 Your flesh, the world, the devil, all of these sources of temptation 01:25:07.440 --> 01:25:13.520 and sin and trespass, they will not ultimately drag you down, because 01:25:13.520 --> 01:25:18.160 God has promised that what He began He will see to completion. 01:25:18.160 --> 01:25:22.880 That's election, that's a gospel promise, that is a source of comfort 01:25:22.880 --> 01:25:24.080 for Christians. 01:25:24.080 --> 01:25:29.760 And anyone who teaches about election in any other framing is fundamentally 01:25:29.760 --> 01:25:33.440 abusing the Word of God by taking what God meant for comfort 01:25:33.440 --> 01:25:35.120 and turning it into a cudgel. 01:25:35.120 --> 01:25:36.560 That should never be done. 01:25:36.560 --> 01:25:40.480 It is why that distinction between law and gospel is so fundamentally 01:25:40.480 --> 01:25:43.360 important for Lutherans, because it is the entirety of how you divide 01:25:43.840 --> 01:25:45.280 God's scripture. 01:25:45.280 --> 01:25:49.040 It's not a matter of trying to number covenants and parse things 01:25:49.040 --> 01:25:50.800 and put them into little buckets. 01:25:50.800 --> 01:25:54.320 It's a matter of is this God telling you what you must 01:25:54.320 --> 01:25:58.560 do, or is this God telling you what he has already done? 01:25:58.560 --> 01:26:02.000 The law is what you must do, and what you cannot do, 01:26:02.000 --> 01:26:04.480 because you are imperfect, you are fallen, you are sinful. 01:26:04.480 --> 01:26:08.160 You cannot fulfill God's law, you cannot be perfect as God is 01:26:08.160 --> 01:26:14.320 perfect. The gospel is God saying, Yes, my law is real. 01:26:14.320 --> 01:26:18.960 Yes, you must repent because you have transgressed it, but I already 01:26:18.960 --> 01:26:20.560 completed the work. 01:26:20.560 --> 01:26:23.120 I gave you the free gift of faith, you are covered by 01:26:23.120 --> 01:26:26.480 the blood of Christ, and you will be saved because your name 01:26:26.480 --> 01:26:29.040 is written in the Lamb's book of life, and it has been 01:26:29.040 --> 01:26:30.800 there from eternity past. 01:26:32.480 --> 01:26:34.880 Those must not be confused. 01:26:35.120 --> 01:26:39.680 Because if you make the law into the gospel, that's a works-based 01:26:39.840 --> 01:26:41.840 religion. That's an entirely different thing. 01:26:41.840 --> 01:26:43.280 That's every religion of the world. 01:26:43.280 --> 01:26:44.000 That's the Jews. 01:26:44.000 --> 01:26:46.320 You want to go be in their camp go to a synagogue. 01:26:46.320 --> 01:26:50.400 And you can't turn the gospel into a law Because then you've 01:26:50.400 --> 01:26:51.520 done the same thing. 01:26:51.520 --> 01:26:54.800 You have destroyed the comfort of the Christian religion. 01:26:54.800 --> 01:26:58.320 You have destroyed God's promise that you will be saved because He 01:26:58.320 --> 01:27:01.280 is the one who has done the work, and you have instead 01:27:01.280 --> 01:27:05.280 made it into a new law to obey, and you won't, because 01:27:05.280 --> 01:27:06.960 you can't. 01:27:06.960 --> 01:27:09.360 It is important to keep those distinct. 01:27:09.360 --> 01:27:13.760 You must rebuke the sin and the sinner with the law, but 01:27:13.760 --> 01:27:17.280 then you must comfort him with the gospel because the gospel is, 01:27:17.280 --> 01:27:21.840 as it says, the good news, it is finished, Christ did the 01:27:21.840 --> 01:27:26.000 work. So yes, do good works, but you can do them because 01:27:26.240 --> 01:27:29.360 God has already given you a new heart. 01:27:29.360 --> 01:27:30.960 God has renewed you. 01:27:30.960 --> 01:27:34.480 Yes, in time it is not complete, it is complete at the 01:27:34.480 --> 01:27:38.000 resurrection, the general resurrection of the just. 01:27:38.240 --> 01:27:41.440 But you can do good works because you are covered by Christ's 01:27:41.440 --> 01:27:45.200 blood. They will not save you, but they will be credited to 01:27:45.200 --> 01:27:47.760 you because of Christ's work. 01:27:47.760 --> 01:27:50.720 So election is gospel. 01:27:50.720 --> 01:27:52.880 That is the fundamentally important point. 01:27:52.880 --> 01:27:54.880 That is the framing of it. 01:27:54.880 --> 01:27:59.120 And if you keep that in mind, you will not go off 01:27:59.120 --> 01:28:00.080 the rails. 01:28:00.080 --> 01:28:03.520 That's what happens with theologians who don't keep that in mind. 01:28:03.520 --> 01:28:08.000 They develop some other system, some other edifice, some other doctrine, and 01:28:08.000 --> 01:28:12.400 build it up, but they've started with a fundamentally false foundation, and 01:28:12.400 --> 01:28:15.760 so everything they build on it is ultimately wrong. 01:28:15.760 --> 01:28:18.880 Even if maybe some little piece of it they happen to accidentally 01:28:18.880 --> 01:28:23.360 get right, the entirety of the thing is built on sand instead 01:28:23.360 --> 01:28:25.040 of the rock. 01:28:25.040 --> 01:28:26.880 So go and read God's word. 01:28:26.880 --> 01:28:29.040 Go and read the verses that deal with the lection. 01:28:29.040 --> 01:28:32.240 See if what I have said is consonant with God, what he 01:28:32.240 --> 01:28:34.080 has said, what he teaches in his word. 01:28:34.080 --> 01:28:38.800 You'll find that it is, because election is not law, it's gospel, 01:28:38.800 --> 01:28:42.480 it's meant for the comfort of the saints, in times of tribulation 01:28:42.480 --> 01:28:48.080 and testing, while in this world, that besets us with temptations to 01:28:48.080 --> 01:28:50.240 sin constantly. 01:28:50.240 --> 01:28:55.840 And again, even though you may fall, and you certainly will, God 01:28:55.840 --> 01:28:59.280 has already finished the work, and you will be preserved until the 01:28:59.280 --> 01:29:02.800 end, because God is the one who guarantees it, God is the 01:29:02.800 --> 01:29:06.080 one who sees it through, and God cannot fail. 01:29:16.080 --> 01:29:19.520 I do see that there are some more questions in the chat. 01:29:19.520 --> 01:29:24.160 I am going to copy and paste those for a future episode. 01:29:24.160 --> 01:29:28.480 Probably going to have to do another long-ish episode just to try 01:29:28.480 --> 01:29:33.360 to catch up because the future topic slash question list is getting 01:29:33.360 --> 01:29:36.480 longer faster than I am answering them. 01:29:36.480 --> 01:29:40.800 However, for tonight, because I think about an hour and a half 01:29:40.800 --> 01:29:44.000 right now, maybe a little less than that, I think I'm going 01:29:44.000 --> 01:29:45.440 to call it here. 01:29:45.440 --> 01:29:48.800 So again, as always, thank you for those who submitted questions. 01:29:48.800 --> 01:29:49.120 Thank you. 01:29:49.120 --> 01:29:51.280 Thank you for participating in the chat. 01:29:51.280 --> 01:29:54.960 Always glad to answer these questions once a week. 01:29:54.960 --> 01:29:56.160 Generally once a week. 01:29:56.160 --> 01:29:58.640 Only skipped one week so far. 01:29:58.640 --> 01:30:02.560 Hopefully next week I will actually have mounted the blackout curtain that 01:30:02.560 --> 01:30:04.880 I purchased so that I will not have the sun trying to 01:30:04.880 --> 01:30:07.440 blind me as I record as I'm sure some of you noticed 01:30:07.440 --> 01:30:10.480 me trying to bob and weave to avoid the sun there. 01:30:10.480 --> 01:30:13.600 At any rate, if you have questions, the best way to submit 01:30:13.600 --> 01:30:15.520 those is always via the forum. 01:30:15.520 --> 01:30:19.120 There are links to that in the description of the video. 01:30:19.120 --> 01:30:21.760 There will be links in the show notes at links to the 01:30:21.760 --> 01:30:23.600 show notes as well. 01:30:23.600 --> 01:30:29.120 I try to publish these afterward, within the week afterward, let's be 01:30:29.120 --> 01:30:31.360 honest. I tried to do it a little earlier than that, the 01:30:31.360 --> 01:30:34.960 day or two, but within a week afterward, I published the episode. 01:30:34.960 --> 01:30:37.360 It has a link to the show notes on the forum. 01:30:37.360 --> 01:30:40.960 And that is the audio only for those who don't need or 01:30:40.960 --> 01:30:43.760 want to watch video, I know there are some who want something 01:30:43.760 --> 01:30:46.400 that's a little less bandwidth intense. 01:30:46.400 --> 01:30:49.520 Or you know, listen to it while you're out mowing or something. 01:30:49.520 --> 01:30:52.960 As those who have a lot of acreage of grass know mowing 01:30:52.960 --> 01:30:54.400 takes rather a long time. 01:30:54.560 --> 01:30:56.800 At any rate, that's how you can submit questions to me. 01:30:56.800 --> 01:30:59.280 I do also try to collect them from the chat, from X, 01:30:59.280 --> 01:31:03.280 from Telegram, other places, but the forum, as always, is the easiest 01:31:03.440 --> 01:31:06.720 for me and for others looking for the answers in the future. 01:31:06.720 --> 01:31:08.640 There are transcripts and other things there. 01:31:08.640 --> 01:31:12.720 I'm a little behind on the transcripts because I had a slight 01:31:12.720 --> 01:31:17.520 issue with a cellular carrier not sending me my two-factor authentication so 01:31:17.520 --> 01:31:19.040 I couldn't log into my account. 01:31:19.040 --> 01:31:22.480 Anyway, that's been resolved now, so I'll get those that backlog of 01:31:22.480 --> 01:31:24.080 transcripts cleaned up. 01:31:24.080 --> 01:31:26.400 But I think that's it for this week. 01:31:26.400 --> 01:31:29.200 So I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. 01:31:29.200 --> 01:31:33.120 It's of course Friday night, so I guess go out and have 01:31:33.280 --> 01:31:35.520 a good time of time tonight for those of you who are 01:31:35.520 --> 01:31:37.840 in a little earlier time zone, it's already nine o'clock here. 01:31:37.840 --> 01:31:41.280 Not that old, it's not that late, but have a great weekend. 01:31:41.280 --> 01:31:44.240 Go to church on Sunday and I will see you all next 01:31:44.240 --> 01:31:47.520 week. Maybe we'll make it on Thursday for once, or maybe it'll 01:31:47.520 --> 01:31:48.800 be Friday again. 01:31:48.800 --> 01:31:50.960 If we're honest, Friday's more likely. 01:31:50.960 --> 01:31:54.240 But have a great week and God bless you all. 01:31:54.240 --> 01:31:55.520 Till next time.